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Math Fair

I really enjoyed participating in the Math Fair at the West Point Grey Academy. I could see that the kids had put a lot of effort into their projects. I was actually amazed by their efforts and interesting ideas they had used for their projects. I never thought so many different probability games could be made with different materials, such as cards, spinning wheels, balls, etc. I think that the way that kids had to create their own games of fair or unfair probability definitely let them explore the concept quite deeply. A lot of brilliant kids were enthusiastically willing to explain the back knowledge of the way their games worked. It was fascinating to have conversations with them and delve into their ideas and results.
The prior meeting with the Junior School math teacher before we headed to the event site upstairs really helped me have the idea what the Math Fair was about and know the learning objectives the students were expected to meet while hosting their games. Because of that, I was able to know what kind of questions I should ask. Many of them could proudly answer most of my questions, but I could see that some of them were still unsure about their results and the math behind their games, especially those who had unfair probability games although I could tell they had definitely put a lot of effort into their posters. Of course, though, I understand that they could have had a harder time to figure out how an unfair game could work and to predict results for such game than those who had fair games.

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