Pizza problems with four and five toppings, Clip 1 of 6: Approaching the problem

This clip is the first of six featuring four grade 11 students, Robert, Stephanie, Shelly, and Amy Lynn, as they construct and justify solutions to the Pizza Problem. This clip focuses on Stephanie and Shelly as they consider alternate approaches to solve the problem. Stephanie suggests that previous problems, including Shirts and Pants and Towers, and strategies such as tree diagrams might be helpful. Shelly uses her calculator and knowledge of combinations and factorial procedures to conjecture about possible solutions. Each of the four students begins to list possible pizza options using partial tree diagrams to keep track of what they are doing. PROBLEM STATEMENT "A local pizza shop has asked us to help design a form to keep track of certain pizza choices. They offer a plain pizza that is cheese and tomato sauce. A customer can then select from the following toppings: pepper, sausage, mushrooms, and pepperoni. How many different choices for pizza does a customer have? List all the choices. Find a way to convince each other that you have accounted for all possible choices. Suppose a fifth topping, anchovies, were available. How many different choices for pizza does a customer now have? Why?"Transcript and student work are also available.Robert B. Davis Institute for Learning. (1999). Pizza problems with four and five toppings, Clip 1 of 6: Approaching the problem. [video]. Retrieved from http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000001201.Video.000054908Available in QuickTime streaming and downloadable Flash digital video files