Tell students that the cafeteria workers plan to offer pizza with four different toppings: Pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, and green pepper. Their job is "create" each kind of pizza. If they always put two different toppings on each pizza, how many different pizzas can they make? What combinations are possible?
Let students discuss possible answers.
Distribute copies of the Pizza-Topping Combinations activity sheet to each student. Students will be cutting out pizza "toppings" to use in today's lesson.
Discuss the directions with the students.
Students should work in groups of 3, if possible. First, the students in the group should discuss a systematic way of creating all of the combinations of pizza. Students should use cutout pictures of two different toppings and paste them onto one of the empty pizzas. Continue having the students paste other combinations until all of the combinations have been created.
An interesting discussion point should come up. Does order matter when placing the toppings on the pizza? For example, is pepperoni-mushroom the same as mushroom-pepperoni? Allow time for students to discuss this in their groups and come to a consensus. Remind students that they are using different toppings for their pizzas.
For the purposes of probability, order does not matter when placing toppings on a pizza, so these are the following possible combinations:
Pepperoni and Mushroom
Pepperoni and Sausage
Pepperoni and Green Pepper
Mushroom and Sausage
Mushroom and Green Pepper
Sausage and Green Pepper
After the activity is completed, each group should share their results with the entire class. One group's pizzas can be arranged on posterboard to be "given" to the cafeteria workers.
Ask students how the solution would have been different if toppings could be repeated (e.g. "double" toppings)? Allow students time in their groups to discuss and explore the answer. Students may repeat the previous steps and cut out the topping combinations, or they may use another method to solve this new problem.
The following are the possible combinations when toppings can be repeated:
Pepperoni and Pepperoni
Pepperoni and Mushroom
Pepperoni and Sausage
Pepperoni and Green Pepper
Mushroom and Mushroom
Mushroom and Sausage
Mushroom and Green Pepper
Sausage and Sausage
Sausage and Green Pepper
Green Pepper and Green Pepper
Once again, order does not matter.
