There's an eco-disaster in my soup There's an eco-disaster in my soup
Mathematical areas open for exploration using this article include: proportions, percentages, statistics (descriptive and inferential), measurements, ratio, place value and scaling, averages and outliers, chance and data, and graphing. There is ample opportunity for students to critically examine the statistical figures presented. Furthermore, whether they actually represent that which they claim to. With the use of other support resources it would be possible to explore a number of rich learning tasks by using this article as a beginning point.
A class survey could be conducted asking students whether they think shark finning should be banned and also whether they like sharks. The class could then examine correctional relationships. It may be helpful to present the article to a class minus the emotive heading. Thus allowing students to draw their own conclusions about the issue from the written content. It could also be useful to compare data about class attitudes to shark hunting compared with hunting other endangered animals.
(Written by Amber Kenny, BTeach student, University of Tasmania,
2001)
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Newspaper article
Student Questions for this article
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