Panda Populations
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) wants to determine the population of
Panda bears. We will help them by “capturing” some pandas to tag.
Collect a handful of beans from your container of black beans. Count
how many beans you collected and substitute an equal number of white
beans back to your container. These white beans represent the tagged
pandas.
Shake up your container to simulate the pandas moving about their habitat.
Now “recapture” samples of the panda population to estimate the total population by taking handfuls of
your bean mixture and scaling it up to the whole population. Replace the sample after each trial.
Record your data in the table below.
Trial
Number
Number of White
Beans
Total Number of
Beans
Ratio of White to
Total
Population
Estimation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Based on your trials, how many pandas do you think are in your population? Why?
In 1960, WWF re-captured 10 samples with a mean relative frequency of 0.12. Does this data support a
conclusion that the panda population has declined between 1960 and your current population estimation?
Justifying using statistics, graphs, and plots as needed.
ATTENTION: The majority of this task is appropriate for 7th Grade Mathematics. During this transition
year, you may want to use this to help your students understand sampling from a population. The last
question is what gets at the Secondary III core.
Sources: http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L721
Materials:
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Black/Brown beans
White beans
Containers for each student (or pairs as you see fit)
sticky notes
Notes:
After each student or pair has estimated their population, have students record their white to total relative
frequencies on 10 sticky notes to create a class histogram. This will be important to complete the last
question where they are comparing the 1960 information to the “current” population estimation.