Salmon Fishing - Kit: Investigations into Probability (Math in a Cultural Context)

Students in grades six and seven use activities based on subsistence and commercial fishing in southwest Alaska to investigate various topics related to probability, such as experimental and theoretical probability, the law of large numbers, sample space and equally and unequally likely events. The module consists of nine activities, with each activity including an introduction, goals, materials used, preparation needed before class, vocabulary and instructions.

Includes one teacher resource, two posters, and two CD-ROMs.

About the Series Math in a Cultural Context

This series is a supplemental math curriculum based on the traditional wisdom and practices of the Yup’ik people of southwest Alaska. The result of more than a decade of collaboration between math educators and elders, these modules connect cultural knowledge to school mathematics. Students are challenged to communicate and think mathematically as they solve inquiry-oriented problems, which require creative, practical and analytical thinking. Classroom-based research strongly suggests that students engaged in this curriculum can develop deeper mathematical understandings than students who engage only with a procedure-oriented, paper-and-pencil curriculum.