Lesson: Squirrel Sorters

Play the “Squirrels Go Nuts” video. Then hold an open-ended class discussion using the following questions:

• What was one question that Mikel Delgado was trying to answer with her experiment? (Possible answers: Do squirrels get frustrated? What happens when squirrels learn to expect something and then that changes?)

• What is frustration? (not getting what you expected)

• How did Delgado measure whether or not the squirrels got frustrated? (She looked at their tails.)

• Did the squirrels get frustrated? How did Delgado know? (Yes; they flagged their tails.)

• Delgado hypothesizes that frustration might be helpful. Why? (Frustration might cause animals to try new solutions to problems.)

• Describe a time you felt frustrated and why. What did you do to overcome your frustration?

Distribute or digitally share the “Author’s Purpose” literacy skills sheet. Have students read the article individually. Ask: What is the author’s purpose in this article, and how do you know? (to inform; the article gives information about squirrels’ behavior) Then tell students that different paragraphs of this article inform about different things. Have volunteers reread paragraphs of the article aloud. After paragraph 5, have students fill out the first row of the skills sheet. Do this again after paragraphs 6 and 8. Allow volunteers to share what they recorded.

Play the instructional video “Using Measures of Center.” Then have students individually read through the introduction of the “Finding Measures of Center” box on page 7. Use the almond data for Amity’s time (seconds) to model calculating mean, median, and mode. For each measure, have volunteers explain the steps of their calculations. Then have students work independently to calculate the measures of center for the remaining data of Amity and Flame. Hold a class discussion about what they found using the following questions:

• What did you notice about the data?

• Were there any data sets that had a mean, median, and mode very close to one another?

• Can you make any hypotheses about squirrel behavior after calculating the measures of center for these sets?

As students find the mean, median, and mode, look for and correct the following common misconceptions:

• Confusing mean, median, and mode for each other

• For median, not ordering the data values from least to greatest as a first step

• Thinking that you can have two medians, and therefore not calculating the median for a set

• Not realizing that there can be more than one mode or no mode at all

Have students brainstorm any wonderings they have about specific animals and their behaviors. If students are stuck picking an animal, assign animals at random. Use the “Investigating Animal Research” skills sheet from our friends at Science World to have students plan and design an experiment about their animal’s behavior. 

Have students re-watch the video “Using Measures of Center.” Then have them use the data from the map on page 5 of the magazine to calculate the mean, median, and mode of electoral votes the states have.