Blog #5 (Spreadsheets)

I watched Judy Young's exercise with her 7th grade class. They practiced using spreadsheets for estimation in Wildlife Sampling. The students were given a real-time, local scenario about declining salmon populations and the need for water resources during a drought. Student acted as Fish and Wildlife officers, taking a sampling of salmon in local rivers. Each group of students was assigned a river (paper bag) that was full of fish (goldfish crackers). They used a cup to scoop out a sampling. They recorded their results and put the tagged (pretzel goldfish) fish back into the river (paper bag). Additional sampling was done and results were recorded. The recorded numbers were then imputed into a spreadsheet. The class used formulas to determine salmon levels in each river. 

I'm not sure I would change much of this exercise. I believe it could easily be used for a middle school writing class. I would have the students conduct the experiment just like the example class. Following the experiment I would have the students use the information to write about the issues of water use during a drought, keeping diminishing salmon populations in mind. This experiment would help my students better understand the issues they are writing about help them learn the value of good research prior to writing.