Independent and Dependent Events

Probability
Michigan Standards Addressed:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSS.CP.A.5
Recognize and explain the concepts of conditional probability and independence in everyday
language and everyday situations.
Lesson Objective: Students will understand the difference between independent and
dependent events in probability and be able to apply it to everyday situations.
Materials:
A deck of playing cards
Student Note Packets
Plan of Instruction:
1. Warm-up: Within your group, answer the following prompt:
You are playing Monopoly and were just sent to jail. You dont want have pay the $50 to get
out and try to get out by rolling doubles with the dice. Find the theoretical probability that you
are able to get out of jail on your first roll.
Give students a few minutes to complete the warm up activity and then discuss the warm up
as a class, eliciting student responses and reasoning.
2. Go over homework from previous day and have students volunteer to answer any questions
that another student might have. If no students volunteer, the instructor answers the
question.
3. Conduct a mini-lecture on independent and dependent events.
Explain to the students that we are looking for a specific card (Ace of Diamonds for
example, but it can be any card in the deck). The student who draws that card out of the
deck gets a prize (candy, homework pass, something that will motivate students). Then
go around
Explain to the students that this is what is known as an independent event. Events
(drawing a card) are independent if the occurrence of one event (Jessica drawing a 6
of clubs from a deck of 52 cards) is independent of another event (Mark drawing a 5
of hearts from a deck of 52 cards).
Give several other examples of independent events not related to dice (flipping a
coin 5 times, guessing on two multiple choice questions on a test, etc). These are all
independent events because the result of the first event has no impact or influence
on the second event.
Now, repeat the playing card activity from above, but this time remove any cards drawn
by the students.
Explain to students that this is what is known as a dependent event. Events (drawing
a card) are dependent because the occurrence of one event does affect the
probability of the other (Jessica drawing a 3 of spades out of a deck of 52 cards and
then Mark drawing a Jack of diamonds from the same deck, but now with 51 cards).
Give several other examples of dependent events (Choosing two movies to watch
this weekend from RedBox, drawing names out of a hat, etc). These are all

Geometry - Spatial Reasoning Finding the Volume of a Prism

 dependent events because the result of the first event has an impact or influence on
the second event.
4. Using their warm up, have students determine whether the second or third rolls would be
independent or dependent events. Make sure that they explain their reasoning.
5. Within their groups, have the students come up with an example of both an independent
event and a dependent event that has not already been used in class. The groups will share
their examples with the rest of the class.
If groups finish early, have those groups begin working on their homework questions.
6. Formative Assessment: Students will begin working on questions for this lesson from the
book, due the following day.
Sources:
Burger, Edward B., David J. Chard, Earlene J. Hall, Paul A. Kennedy, and Steven J. Leinwand.
Algebra I. 1st ed., Austin, TX, Holt, Reinhart and Winston.

Geometry - Spatial Reasoning Finding the Volume of a Prism