Mathematical Investigation

Dice Sums and Products



Throw 2 dice and multiply the scores. Investigate!

What about 3 dice?

What about adding?

 

 

See also Snail Race, Dice Bingo, Dice and Spinners, and Probability.

Here are some tables that you can type into. They may help with your investigation.

Experimental Results:

ScoreFrequencyProbability
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36

 

Possibility Space:

 123456
1
2
3
4
5
6

 

Sketch of crazy dice

Teacher Notes

Sign in to your Transum subscription account to see the teacher Notes.

Investigations Home

Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for those learning Mathematics anywhere in the world. Click here to enter your comments.

A mathematical investigation is quite different to other mathematical activities. The best investigations are open ended and allow students to choose the way they work and how they record their findings. It is one of the few occasions when 'going off on a tangent' is not only acceptable but actively encouraged (within reason).

Students may ask for 'the answers' but this supposes that the activity is closed. Investigations can always be extended by varying the initial instructions or asking the question 'what if...?'. Sometimes students point out that the instructions are ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways. This is fine and the students are encouraged to explain how they interpreted the instructions in their report.

Some students may benefit from a writing frame when producing the reports of their investigations. Teachers may suggest sections or headings such as Introduction, Interpretation, Research, Working and Conclusion or something similar.

Here are some other activities you may be interested in:

Featured Activity

Numskull

Numskull

Interactive, randomly-generated, number-based logic puzzle based on the Latin square designed to develop numeracy skills. These puzzles are drag and drop and can earn you a Transum Trophy.

Suggested

Remainder Race

Remainder Race

A game involving chance and choice requiring an ability to calculate the remainder when a two digit number is divided by a single digit number.

The short web address is:

Transum.org/go/?to=remainder

Recently Updated

Shape Sorter

Shape Sorter

Drag each shape into the correct bin according to their types and symmetries. So far this activity has been accessed 269 times and 147 Transum Trophies have been awarded for completing it.

Transum.org is a proud supporter of the kidSAFE Seal Program