Five More Minutes Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 DD 6 loves watching nature documentaries and reading books about animals. She invariably notices the numbers quoted, and especially those related to population. Every. single. time. she asks "How do they know that there are that many?" (or, my favourite, she announces "Let ME count" when she's looking at a screen packed with animals or plants or even stars. :001_rolleyes: ) What would be a good way to help her understand how scientists arrive at these numbers? "Mom said so" doesn't work for this one ... she needs Proof. Ideally I'd use a book / out-in-the-field activity combination, but I'd be happy with either. I don't even really know how to search for this type of question online, and so far have just been unearthing worksheet-type of activities. Her reading level is perhaps around Gr. 4/5, and she'll happily go with lower levels if they aren't too obviously for young kids; any activities requiring more than Gr. 1 math will be difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 Seems to me a large sample of bugs and actually doing it would be a way... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Five More Minutes Posted April 20, 2013 Author Share Posted April 20, 2013 Seems to me a large sample of bugs and actually doing it would be a way... Can you patronize me? How, specifically, would I do this with her? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 Try the book Great Estimations and the companion Greater Estimations by Bruce Goldstone. Not about animals per se, but it does teach about how to estimate. As for bugs, how about finding a swarm of cicadas soon and taking a picture then doing a count and extrapolating. Or a bunch of ants. Or those Japanese beetles... I know that a Scientist in the Field book we read recently talked about how the scientist was using mathematical models for estimating the population of snakes. They would tag, release then capture, count, tag, release, and so forth and then use a formula based on that to estimate. Also, with the monarchs just leaving, there have been lots of news clips that talk about how they estimate using acreage and how deep the dead butterflies on the ground were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 We estimated the size of a large mushroom patch. We took an average looking 1 by 1 foot square and counted all the tiny mushrooms in it - so like 66 or something. Then we measured the length and width of the fallen tree they were growing on, and calculated how many 1x1 squares were on the tree. Then it is just calculating. So we got around 1800 mushrooms or something. Obviously, estimation gets much more complicated if you have animals immigrating in and emigrating out of an aread you are counting, but unless your dc asks, just go with nonmoving plants. Ruth in NZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Five More Minutes Posted April 20, 2013 Author Share Posted April 20, 2013 Thank you for the ideas! I've got those books on hold at the library, Farrar, and am going to start looking for a large patch of mushrooms or something similar, Ruth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted April 20, 2013 Share Posted April 20, 2013 What Ruth described is exactly how that book teaches estimating. There are these giant photos of things (lots of pennies, lots of flowers, lots of marbles, etc.) and it shows you how to find a group of ten, see how much space that takes up, and then extrapolate. Or how to see how many are in a square inch of the page (or more) and then multiply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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