To review the big ideas of the lesson, ask students to look back at Betty Robinson's data in the Sample of Animals section in the Student Guide.
- What variables are Betty and her parents investigating? (Type of Animal and Number of Animals)
- Explain the Robinsons' investigation. If they had to draw a picture to show their investigation, what would they draw? (They should show the two variables. They would show pictures of each Type of Animal in the study and label that part of the picture with a T. Then to show that they counted to find the Number of Animals, they could show tallies beside the animals and label the tallies with an N.)
- If you were able to help Betty collect data on the animals in the same area of the forest, which is more likely—that you would see an armadillo or a river otter? How do you know? (It would be more likely to see an armadillo because the Robinsons recorded seeing more armadillos than otters in the data table. The armadillo bar is taller than the river otter bar.)
- How many more armadillos than river otters did the Robinsons see? How do you know? How can you use the graph to solve the problem? (125 more armadillos than otters. Possible strategy: I looked at the data table and knew that I needed to subtract 75 from 200. I thought of money and counted up by 25. You need one more 25 to get to 100 and four 25s to get to 200, so 125 more armadillos. Each line on the graph stands for 25, so you can count up by 25s from the top of the otter bar to the top of the armadillo bar.)
- Is it certain that you would see a spider monkey? Why or why not? (No, it is not certain, but since the spider monkeys were the most common animals in the sample, it is likely.)
- How likely is it that you would see a dinosaur in the Amazon rain forest? Why or why not? (Since dinosaurs are extinct, this is impossible.)
