The test may say you have cancer, but sometimes the test is wrong. The provided task asks learners to analyze cancer statistics for a fictitious town. Given the rate of false positives, they interpret the meaning of this value in the context of the provided data. Constructing a two-way frequency table allows them to record all possible outcomes and analyze that data by calculating probabilities.

Concepts

frequency tables, statistics, cancer, health careers, conditional probability

Show More Show Less

Additional Tags

math

Show More Show Less

Instructional Ideas

• Use extension ideas to modify the lesson to fit the needs of your classes
• Create collaborative groups to present with this task; allow them to strategize to answer the first three questions

Classroom Considerations

• Discuss the meaning of false positive and false negative before assigning the task

Pros

• Presents a statistics and probability task applicable to a math or health science classroom
• Uses an interesting approach to studying conditional probabilities and constructing frequency tables

Cons

• None

Common Core

7.RP.A.3 7.SP.C.8.a 7.SP.C.8.b HSS-CP.A.4 HSS-CP.B.6 RST.6-8.4 MP1 MP2 MP4 MP6