Sampling techniques: Difference between revisions

|subject=Science, Biology

|content=An activity based on four different organisms: the butterfly, the oak, the whale and the zebra.  

* An opportunity for students to analyse a real, quite demanding scientific publication. There is no need to fully understand each piece, but students can learn to skim the material and extract what is relevant.<br />

* An opportunity for students to work in a team; be critical of their colleagues work and to improve each others’ information retrieval skills.

For teachers this lesson offers different sets of ecological sampling examples to extend their lesson portfolio. As the investigation uses ICT, the students may work independently and in groups. There are numerous opportunities within the lesson to assess students as they offer information; analyse information; contribute to the team and deliver their presentation.  

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

Whilst this is a science lesson it also uses ICT. The class should be divided into groups of four students; each group should have at least one student who can 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:

'''Organism one'''<br />

# starter - teacher explaining the task; allocating student roles; dividing class into teams of four for the investigation; allocating roles and explaining task. Introduce the presentation poster idea (5 minutes) <br />

# research - worksheets and scientific articles are provided for four organisms of interest (Butterfly, Oak, Whale and Zebra). Students use the articles to research ONE online and answer the questions. They collect information on their worksheet (20 minutes).<br />

# the teams return to their original place to exchange information found during the research; they start their presentation poster with information that has been collected from the research (5 minutes)<br />

'''Organism two'''<br />

# opportunity for the students to research a second organism using different scientific articles and add information to the first round of research (15 minutes)<br />

# the teams meet and add the relevant information to their poster, finalising their presentation (5 minutes).<br />

# plenary where the groups present their research on one of the sampling techniques to the rest of the class and the teacher also asks directed questions (10 minutes) <br />

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.