How Advertising Can Be Misleading/ Probability in the World

 Welcome back my fellow math educators and readers! 

As promised last week, I’ve made sure to include visuals and my best joke yet to make up for last week! I have attached the joke of the week below for your entertainment:

I really liked this week as we discussed probability and expanded upon our lessons to focus on real world applications. The first activity we did today was presented by my colleague Gagan on how advertising can be misleading, but we can use mathematics to debunk these advertisements. Her activity was derived from the following Grade 12 probability expectation:explain how the media, the advertising industry, and others (e.g., marketers, pollsters) use and misuse statistics (e.g., as represented in graphs) to promote a certain point of view (e.g., by making general statements based on small samples; by making statements using general population statistics without reference to data specific to minority groups). Media is a very powerful resource for business and brands to convince individuals to purchase their product. Although they cannot engage in false advertising, it’s not illegal to use real statistics and form them in a manner that makes them seem better than they are. Gagan demonstrated this in her activity by comparing no name paper towels and Bounty paper towels.

Although they claim that their paper towel can absorb 2x the amount as a competitor, their cost is twice as much. When you break down the costs of the sheets, you get more of the No Name for the same cost. So depending on your need and use for the paper towels you may want to consider purchasing a different brand. If your primary reason for a paper towel is to compliment a meal, the no name option would be more appealing although the Bounty ad claims they’re better. It’s important to help students identify how the media influences their purchases and how math can be used to debunk it. The ability to successfully complete this can result in a lot of smarter economical decisions. 

The next probability activity displayed in class today was constructed by my colleague Marcus. He was given the following expectation from a grade 12 data class: solve probability problems using counting principles for situations involving equally likely outcomes. Mathematics is often deemed as boring and challenging, but Marcus decided to use fun and engaging examples to gather the students' interests. Often with probability, a lot of students develop connections between probability and gambling. Most often, students select the popular game blackjack as it is very easy to learn. By opening up with blackjack to explain digestible probability problems it will help with student engagement. This can be easily translated to using the deck of cards probability problems related to pulling a card out of the deck. 

As prospective educators, we agreed that it’s necessary to implement  math games to classroom instruction when possible. This can help break the stereotype towards mathematics being boring and full of memorization. It also helps students see how mathematics is applied in the real world.

Although I could keep going about probability and its value to mathematics and world I will cut myself off for the day.

Hope to see you all next week for a very interesting blog!

Madison Salmond