Teaching Module: Predict the Climate by throwing a dice

A teaching module that uses a dice and Excel to demonstrate the difference between experimental and theoretical probabilities. It also uses temperature and precipitation data to calculate moving average, identify trends in time series, and learn about data visualization.

This teaching module provides multiple resources under 4 categories:

1. Teachers’ notes for ‘Using sample data sets’ for offline teaching.
2. Teachers’ notes, students’ notes, sample spreadsheet, presentation and presentation notes for ‘ Using dice as Climate Model’ for offline teaching using a computer.
3. Teachers’ notes and students’ worksheet for ‘Investigating climate data using climateprediction.net results’ for online teaching, and
4. Presentation and teaching notes for designing statistical questionnaire

Students will ​​learn about Excel functions, such as RAND, IF, and AVERAGE. They will also learn about visualization, modeling, probability and time series through climate modeling. Furthermore, students will also learn basic methodology used while designing questionnaires. 

Use this tool to help students find answers to:

1. If you throw a dice 100 times, can you predict the climate? What is the probability that the 101st throw will be 4?
2. Using climatepredictions.net to run temperature models, calculate the percentage error for each model.
3. How is climate predicted? Why does climate prediction require the use of multiple models run over long periods of time? 

About the Tool

Tool Name	Key stage 3 & 4 Maths
Discipline	Mathematics and Statistics
Topic(s) in Discipline	Probability, Average, Moving Average, Mean, Time Series, Visualization, Questionnaire Formulation
Climate Topic	Climate Variability Record; Climate and the Atmosphere
Type of tool	Teaching Module
Grade Level	High School
Location	Global
Language	English
Translation
Developed by	climateprediction.net
Hosted at	climateprediction.net
Link	Link
Access	Online/ Offline
Computer Skills	Basic