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Researcher for a day: What kinds of animals live in the Amazon?

Guest blogger: Lindsay Maldonado

posted by Lindsay Maldonado

By day, I’m a researcher at Shedd Aquarium. I study people though, not animals – but, at Shedd, there are also a lot of people who do study animals. Some of these people are conservation research scientists or aquarists, who use math, and science, to help them learn more about the animals in their care, or animals in the wild. No matter who, or what, your subjects are, collecting data helps researchers collect information (i.e., data) that can provide answers to important research questions. For example, I might want to know how many visitors learned something about how they can help animals after their visit; or a conservation researcher might want to know how many seahorses live in a certain area of the world. So, to get us started, let’s pretend we are research scientists. We have our clipboard loaded up with our data collection sheet, some pencils, and our observation eyes. Now we’re ready to start collecting data!

penguin survey

Data analysis is one of the big ideas of early mathematics and can serve as a foundation for introducing other big ideas like sets, number sense, and counting — and, what better place to apply these ideas than at the aquarium with real living animals.

We have some important research questions to answer, so let’s get back into scientist mode. Today we want to know how many different animals live in the River Channel – and, we’re going to answer this question by observing animals (i.e., gathering data) and documenting what we see (i.e., organizing and describing data). These are all important steps to data analysis! If we want to know what animals live in the River Channel, we first need to make some observations. What do you see? A variety of animals live in the River Channel. How many animals do you see? Can you count them? I see 8 animals.

how many animals

Like the Amazon River, this habitat shows the diversity of animals that live in the river. What kind of animals do you see? I see turtles, stingrays, and fish.

kinds of animalsWe can sort the animals in the River Channel in a number of ways. First, we can sort by the attribute: type of animal. There are fish, turtles, and stingrays. Let’s put these animals on our graph. Representing data, in this way, is an important part of data analysis and allows us to interpret the data we collected.

blank graph

Let’s revisit our research question. We want to know how many types of animals live in the Amazon River. Through observation, we saw that fish, turtles, and stingrays live in the Amazon River so there are three types of animals in the River Channel. But how many of each live there? Let’s use our graph to help us organize our data. How many fish do you see? How many turtles? How many stingrays?

animals on graph

In what other ways can you sort these animals? You can use any number of attributes to sort the animals in this picture. We used the attribute of type (turtles, stingrays, and fish) but you could also sort these animals by size or shape. Observing animals at an aquarium is full of math possibilities. You can use data collection and data representation as the foundation for exploring the big ideas of early math. Keep exploring data analysis in the classroom. Try more data activities here.

Lindsay Maldonado

Lindsay Maldonado developed an interest in informal learning experiences during her undergraduate years at Northeastern Illinois University, when she conducted research at the Chicago Children’s Museum to identify the museum programs and exhibits most likely to promote collaborative learning and foster a passion for science, technology, engineering and math by engaging children and families in STEM experiences. While pursuing her master’s degree in child development at the Erikson Institute, she coordinated the development of early childhood and family programs for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Today, as director of audience research and evaluation at the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Maldonado leads the Shedd’s efforts to understand and enhance the visitor experience. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in applied child development at the Erikson Institute and Loyola University Chicago. Her research interests include family learning and engagement and cultural variations in learning and engagement, as well as the role that informal learning institutions play in promoting environmental literacy and connecting children and families to the natural world.

Read more posts by Lindsay Maldonado

26 Replies to “Researcher for a day: What kinds of animals live in the Amazon?”

  1. I like the use of an interesting topic for the children to be engaged in, this is a great and simple way to introduce data analysis collection.

  2. I think this activity would make children stop and think. It might be a novel concept to them which would increase their curiosity.

  3. This is a fun idea to try with looking through a picture book if you can’t get out to the aquarium or zoo. The kids would love pretending to be out in the field researching! Graphing what they see would really make it real.

  4. This topic is a high interest topic for young children making it a wonderful way to teach data collection!

  5. This activity would be great in helping children understand the variance between animals who live in the same place as well as understand that birds can be grouped together or apart depending on the data being collected.

  6. Real concrete things are always more interesting than pictures or relying on memory. PLus it helps when you can go back or look at the things and check them out.
    Mary

  7. This is the best way to use the concept of data collection and representation, so that kids will enjoy while learning

  8. a trip to the zoo or aquarium is the perfect environment to begin a data collection/analysis project; most children love to watch animals and this trip will provide a wide variety of questions that can be answered……

  9. This is a great activity for children, it is fun for them and interesting. Will definitely implement this in my own classroom.

  10. My class of 2-3 year-olds love animals and this could be a great first step to collecting data. Also, a trip to the zoo (first) would be a great way to engage them.

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