Healthy Fish Probability Activity (MAT 257)

At the start of the semester, we did a Healthy Fish activity. This activity was fun and interactive. Plus we got a snack when we were finished;) 

This activity involved a small snack sized pack of rainbow goldfish and a provided worksheet. It was interesting to see everyone's various reactions to organizing the goldfish at the start. As you can see I organized mine by color and in a pattern. I tend to like things neat and organized, and visually appealing.
The object of the activity (which is listed at the top of the worksheet provided to us) was; to understand how probability was determined, to understand experimental versus theoretical probability, to understand the properties of probability, and to understand mutually exclusive and non-mutually exclusive events.
We went through the series of questions and completed the worksheet guiding us to understand each of the objectives. The questions were based on the fact that the fish represented healthy and sick fish. The green colored fish were sick, and the other colored fish were healthy. We then stated the amounts of healthy vs sick and computed the probability of having a sick or healthy fish.
In my fish sample, I had 41 healthy fish, 8 sick fish, and a total of 49 fish. The probability of me choosing a fish from the sample that was healthy was 41/49, or choosing a sick fish was 8/49.
This probability activity was experimental because we calculated the probabilities based off of our observations. Every student in the class had varied probabilities because it was based on their own experiment or their own sample of fish.
This activity was a great way to start our understanding of probability. It also was a great way to lead into other understandings of probability. I think any activity that involves a snack, would really interest students. I would love to use the idea of goldfish as a tool for learning in a classroom. Since I hope to teach preschool I will not be teaching probability in full. Though teaching the basics of separating the fish into colors or grouping various colors together and then counting them is something they could do. Such a great activity!