The Gumball Machine: Linking research and practice about the concept of variability

Abstract

Inspired by the research of Reading and Shaughnessy (2004), we modified an existing lesson from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This lesson, a variation on the "Gumball Task", gives students the opportunity to explore and discuss the variation which occurs in sampling. This paper describes our experience using this lesson as an enrichment activity in a fifth grade classroom. Copyright © 2008 by M. Alejandra Sorto and Alexander White all rights reserved.