Can't Find a Coin?

Why do this problem?

In the context of trying to "fool the teacher", students may find that it is hard to make up the results of an experiment in a mathematically convincing way.

Possible approach

This might be a good start/end to a probability lesson, or a regular start/end to a series of lessons. Individual students could enter data 'live' on an interactive whiteboard, with the class anticipating whether the 'teacher' will be fooled.

Key questions

It could lead to good discussions
- why it is hard to imitate a 'memoryless' random experiment,
- developing a series of tests to check whether data are random.

Possible extension

Take a look at Introducing Distributions