The laughter was loud, the stakes were theoretical, and the math was real.
At Grayslake North, seniors in the Advanced Mathematical Decision Making (AMDM) class transformed their final unit on probability into a full-blown carnival, designed, built, and run entirely by students. But this wasn’t just fun and games. It was applied learning in its most joyful form.
Each student team developed a two-part carnival game, beginning with a chance-based event, like pulling a card or spinning a wheel, that determined the difficulty of the next task. A shot, a toss, a challenge to test your skill. The catch? The odds were never hidden. Students had already calculated them, modeled them, and predicted how things might play out.
They created tree diagrams. Ran trial after trial. Set prices and prizes, and when the school stopped by to play, students recorded every outcome, not just to see who won, but to see if their predictions held true.
After the carnival, students compared their theoretical probabilities with the actual results. Did the outcomes match what they expected? If not, why not? Maybe someone found a better strategy. Maybe nerves got in the way. Maybe the math wasn’t wrong, but real life just had other plans.
“It’s the perfect blend of creativity, math, and problem-solving,” said AMDM teachers Jodi Sokolowski and Chris Hoguet. “Our students get to see the immediate impact of their thinking and they have a blast doing it.”
The AMDM Carnival has become more than just a capstone assignment. It’s a rite of passage and a chance for seniors to lead, to create, and to connect what they’ve learned with how they think. In the end, it’s not just about who wins the game. It’s about realizing that behind every toss, turn, and twist of chance, there’s a mind that made it all happen.