Is There Order out of Chaos?

• Clear transparent sheet

• Markers or pens: one each of red, blue, and green.

• One regular 6-sided die

• Print the same size (6 inches per side) equilateral triangle on each transparent sheet.

• On each triangle mark one of each vertex with a large colored dot (one in red, one blue, one green)

• Pass out to each person:

  • One transparency with a pre-assembled triangle

  • Pens and die

  • Have each person mark any place on or inside the interior of their triangle with ONE of the pens — call this the “starting point”

  • A new starting point will be found by each roll of the die. Here’s an example:

    • If the roll is a 1 or a 2, select the red pen and red vertex.

    • If the roll is a 3 or a 4, select the green pen and green vertex

    • If the roll is a 5 or 6, select the blue pen and the blue vertex

Activity and Discussion:

• Have students roll dice. After each roll of their die and using the correct pen color, tell them to mark a new dot midway between the last starting point and the same pen-colored triangle vertex.

• Each person repeats rolling a die and marking dots 30 times.

  Discussion time!

• After each person has finished, have each of them one by one lay their transparency over all the others lining up the correct colored vertices.

• What pattern do you see?

• Why do these random dots suddenly line up in a pattern? How can that be?