Sampling techniques

Lesson idea. Four sets of activities based on four different organisms: the butterfly, the oak, the whale and the zebra.

Teaching approach. This lesson offers students an opportunity to use their existing knowledge to analyse a ‘real scientific publication’ and its language^(ta) and link this to scientific method^(ta).

• They use study skills^(topic) to skim read, make sense of complex language, and use visualisation^(ta) to select relevant information
• They engage in collaborative^(tool) group work^(ta) using reasoning^(ta) and skills in peer assessment^(ta)
• They engage in dialogue^(ta) and questioning^(ta) to explore ideas together
• They also think about how to present information using ICT⁽ⁱ⁾ tools)
  

Resource details
Title	Sampling techniques to assess population size
Topic	[[Topics/Study skills|Study skills]],  [[Topics/Sampling|Sampling]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Assessment|Assessment]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Dialogue|Dialogue]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Questioning|Questioning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Language|Language]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Group work|Group work]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Visualisation|Visualisation]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Reasoning|Reasoning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Scientific method|Scientific method]]
Learning Objectives	Describe sampling techniques used to assess the population size of more than one organism Explain the advantages of a special sampling technique when compared with other methods Communicate the results and conclusion of the supplied articles on sampling populations
Format / structure	Each organism has 4 documents where N represents: B (Butterfly), O (Oak), W (Whale) or Z (Zebra) N1 – Leading questions N2 – Differentiated material N3 – a word document copy of the web-based article if no ICT is available or if the article is not available online N4 – a truncated word document of the original article to be used as differentiated material. The text contains the parts relevant to answer the leading questions from the original article
Subject	[[Resources/Biology|Biology]],  [[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/KS5|KS5]],  [[Resources/Secondary|Secondary]],  [[Resources/KS4|KS4]]
Useful information	Black oak article: http://www.nps.gov/yose/naturescience/black-oaks.htm (US National Park Service) A video on black oaks: http://www.nps.gov/yose/photosmultimedia/ynn17-blackoaks.htm (US National Park Service) Butterflies article: http://www.ukbms.org/methods.htm Plain Zebra article: http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/4/725.full Sperm Whale article: http://www.oneworldwildlife.org/what_we_do/projects/current/mediterranean
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Our Living Environment
Other (e.g. time frame)	Duration: Approximately 1h, see below for more details.
Files and resources to view and download	Leading questions File:B1 Butterfly questions worksheet.docx File:O1 Oak questions worksheet.docx File:W1 Whale questions worksheet.docx File:Z1 Zebra questions worksheet.docx Differentiated material for the less able students: File:B2 Butterfly differentiated materials.doc File:O2 Oak differentiated materials.doc File:W2 Whale differentiated materials.doc File:Z2 Zebra differentiated materials.doc Additional files File:Information poster A3 page.ppt File:Tags.ppt Scientific articles: File:O3 Oak scientific article.docx File:B3 Butterfly scientific article.docx File:W3 Whale scientific article.docx Scientific Differentiated articles: File:O4 Oak scientific differentiated article.docx File:W4 Whale scientific differentiated article.docx

Rationale

The pedagogical purpose of this lesson is to offer:

• An opportunity for students to analyse a real, quite demanding scientific publication. There is no need to fully understand them, but students can learn how to skim the material and extract what's relevant.
  
• An opportunity for students to work in a team; be critical of their colleagues work and so to improve each others’ information retrieval skills.
• An opportunity for students to present the results of their investigation to the class.
  

For teachers this lesson offers a different set of ecological sampling examples that may add to or extend their lesson portfolio. As it is also an ICT based investigation the lesson should enable students to work independently as well as in groups. Numerous assessment opportunities within the lesson allow students to offer and analyse information, contribute to team effort and test their presentation abilities.

Students are expected to analyse complex data and extract the relevant information. They will also have to collaborate within their team to produce the final results for presentation. The second round of ICT work should enable students to add to the knowledge collected by the team members. The final presentation gives the opportunity for students to present their data to the class.

Whilst this is a science lesson it can also be classed as an ICT based one too. The class should be divided into groups of four students; each group should have at least one student who could to lead the group work. It is recommended that less able or less motivated students be spread across different groups. The following is a guide to how the lesson may be delivered in a one-hour session:

The Plan

Stage one

• 5 minutes Teacher based starter i.e. explaining the task, allocating student roles; dividing class into groups of four to form teams for the investigation, introducing the idea of the presentation poster.
  
• 20 minutes where students research online using the provided articles and answering the stated questions. Worksheets and Scientific articles are provided for the four organisms of interest: Butterfly, Oak, Whale and Zebra.
  
• 5 minutes for the teams to meet and start filling in their presentation poster with the information that has been collected from the online research
  

Stage two

• 15 minutes a second opportunity for the students to research alternative organisms using different scientific articles
  
• 5 minutes for the groups to meet and add the relevant information to their poster.
  
• 10 minutes for a plenary where the groups present their findings. The teacher can also ask directed questions at this stage
  

Types of learning

The lesson follows on from a series of preceding practical investigations in the school grounds. During these previous lessons students will have experienced a variety of sampling techniques such as use of quadrants, leaf litter sampling, ‘tree beating’ sampling and so on. This lesson takes the sampling techniques question into a ‘real life’ scenario that they may not have encountered.

This lesson offers the opportunity to expand the following learning scenarios:

• Analysis of the scientific articles thereby supporting exploration and data analysis.
  
• Collaborative learning by working in a group to prepare and produce the poster together.
  
• The second meeting around the poster supports consolidation.
  
• The presentation of the poster supports presentations skills.
  

In addition it also meets the following types of learning scenarios:

• Small group work: the investigation by the groups followed by reporting back to the class
• Whole class dialogue: there is discussion for each of the 4 different organisms
• Open ended questions: there is potential to probe why is one sampling technique different to another “How do you explain the x result…?”
• Peer assessment: do peers agree with the analysis?
• Project work: students are exposed to different sampling techniques
• Enquiry based learning: the initial presentation to the class can be framed as a problem for students to solve
• Co-enquiry: students work collaboratively
• Arguing & reasoning: there needs to be discussion as well as debate & persuasion for consensus
• Exploring ideas: there is development of the understanding of Scientific principles and techniques e.g. sampling methods vary according to species.

Tips for the teacher

Pitfalls and Tips

• Group your students well.
  
• Provide enough space for the groups to meet and fill in the poster.
  
• Allow sufficient time for the students plenary presentation and potential questioning.

• The students work independently most of the time so it is necessary to provide good supervision to ensure that they remain on task.
  
• The scientific articles are quite challenging so able students may need encouragement and help to skim the information.
  
• Less able students are provided with a differentiated worksheet that helps them answer the questions.

Duration

Starter - divide class in groups of 4 students – allocate roles and explain task. (5 minutes).
Students start to research their task using a guiding document. They collect information on their worksheet. (20 minutes)
Group return to their original place to exchange information found during the research and start filling up the information poster. (5 minutes)
Students return to the computers to research a different organism and add information to the first round of research. (15 minutes)
The groups reconvene – finalising their presentation on the poster. (5 minutes)
Plenary - One person describes to the rest of the class one of the sampling techniques researched.(10 minutes)

Notes:

This is an investigation linked to group work and presentation of posters.

Follow up/extension

The lesson is the last in a sequence of lessons of sampling techniques.

Recommendations/class set up

This lesson is following students practical experience with sampling methods. The lesson should increase the students understanding of sampling methods and expose them to real scientific use of these methods.

Differentiation

Each task has differentiated material to support less able students.

About the resource files

Each organism has 4 documents where N represents: B (Butterfly), O (Oak), W (Whale) or Z (Zebra)
N1 – the leading questions
N2 – the differentiated material that may help the less able to answer the questions
N3 – a word document copy of the web based article if no ICT is available or if the article is not available online
N4 – a truncated word document of the original article to be used as differentiated material. The text contains the parts relevant to answer the leading questions from the original article

Black oak task
O1 questions Black Oak sampling
O2 differentiated material Oak tree
O3 Oak tree sampling article
O4 Oak tree sampling differentiated article

Butterflies task
B1 questions butterflies sampling
B2 differentiated material butterflies
B3 butterflies sampling article

Zebra task
Z1 questions Plain Zebra sampling
Z2 differentiated material Plain zebra
Z3 Plain Zebra sampling article
Z4 Plain Zebra sampling differentiated article

Whale task
W1 sperm whale sampling
W2 differentiated material Sperm whale
W3 sperm whale sampling
W4 sperm whale sampling differentiated article
Information poster A3 page – PowerPoint page to print and enlarge to A3 size. One per group. Tags - PowerPoint pages to produce ‘expert’ tags for the different organisms (optional resource)