Sampling and Population Studies

Why Sampling and Population Studies are Done...

To Monitor the Health of an Ecosystem Christmas bird counts and the bird atlas Frog mutations

Freshwater Macro-invertebrate count Looking at stream quality

Endangered Species Brown pelicans osprey Bald eagles

Water rights in the Owens Valley (DWP)

Draw up Political Boundaries and Dispute money The United States Census

Establish Hunting and Fishing Limits

Determine the Effectiveness of Experimental Drugs

To Look at the Television Viewing Habits of Americans

Monitor the Effect of Nature on an Ecosystem Volcanoes Hurricanes Global Warming EL Nino

To Track Subtle changes that may have been brought about by humans Integrated pest management Reintroduction of animals into National Parks Determine the effectiveness of genetically engineered crops

Because it’s interesting and fun, and you don’t always know what the data will reveal!!!

Key concepts

1.Sampling is done because counting all of the stars, bacteria, people etc, is too cumbersome or just plain impossible.

2. The sampling must be done randomly.

2. The sampling technique assumes that the population is distributed evenly (statistically) throughout the area of study.

3. The data is interpreted and analyzed knowing the limitations presented earlier.

The Study must be conducted over a long period of time... because populations fluctuate from year to year.

Modeling Population Studies in the Classroom

II. Transect-Line Method I. The Grid Method II. Transect-Line Method III. Tag and Recapture Method

Predator/Prey Relationships The Grid Method: Predator/Prey Relationships

The Daily Newspaper serves as a Hypothetical Forest

Our Hypothetical Forest is full of Predators (Owls) and Prey (Voles) The Letter “E” The Letter “L”

By using different parts of the newspaper, we can increase and decrease the amounts of predator and prey in our forest for any given year...

Then we divide the forest into a 10 inch by 10 inch grid

Students then count only those squares that have been randomly selected

Plotting the Graph and Analyzing the Data

Population Studies are an important part of our science curriculum involving many different skills: 1. Data Collection and Analysis 2. Mathematics including statistics and proportions 3. Graphing 4. Cooperative learning