Is a Mammal’s Sleep Habit Related to its Life Span?
Learning Objectives

Make predictions based on a data display.

Compare a single data case to a group. Compare across groups.

Review tools/functions in TinkerPlots or GeoGebra
Activity
There are many different mammals and they all sleep different amounts during a 24 hour period.
Have you ever noticed how much your pet dog or cat seems to sleep? Is there a relationship
between the number of hours a type of mammal sleeps during a 24 hour period and its life span? If
you notice a pattern, would a human fit into that pattern?
In this activity you will look at data about types of mammals and decide if there are patterns that
can be seen between diet, sleep and life span. The data file titled Mammals can be found in the
Science and Nature folder. On the data cards, you will find information about a type of mammal,
its life span, height, mass, speed, and diet along with a few other variables. For example, the first
card is the African Elephant.
Before you begin your exploration with the data, think about what you expect to see. Answer these
questions based upon your perceptions.
1. About how many hours in a day do you think a mammal larger than you would sleep? Explain.
2. Which type of mammal do you believe would have a longer life expectancy – one that sleeps
many hours in a 24 hours period or one who sleeps only a few hours? Explain.
3. The diets of the mammals fall into 3 categories: plants, meat, and both. Do you believe a planteating mammal will have a shorter or longer life span than a mammal that eats meat? Explain.
2009 Creative Teaching Grant, Ball State University – Revised, May 2015 / KG Shafer LLC
1
Is a Mammal’s Sleep Habit Related to its Life Span?
Investigate with Dot Plots
1. Open the Mammals data file in Tinkerplots. How many mammals do you have data for?
2. Make a dot plot with speed on the horizontal axis. Click on one of the icons on the right side
marked with an *. What is significant about those data points?
3. Which mammal has the slowest speed? Which mammal has the fastest speed? Don’t forget to
write the unit of measure in your answer.
4. Place life span on the horizontal axis and determine the range, mode, median and mean of the
data.
Range
Mode
Median
Mean
5. Is the median to the left or the right of the mean? What does that indicate about how the data is
skewed?
6. Which mammal has the longest life span?
7. If that mammal (data point) is removed from the set, predict if any of the measures of center will
change? Verify your prediction by hiding the data point. Click on the icon representing the
mammal with the longest life span then under Plot select hide selected cases. Compare the
measures of center with and without the maximum value for life span.
With maximum data point Without maximum data point
Mean
Median
Mode
Was your prediction accurate?
2009 Creative Teaching Grant, Ball State University – Revised, May 2015 / KG Shafer LLC
2
Is a Mammal’s Sleep Habit Related to its Life Span?
8. Select Plot and show hidden cases. Place sleep on the horizontal axis. Click on the diet
attribute to show the diet of each mammal. What is the diet of the 5 mammals that get the least
amount of sleep? Does this make sense?
Other Graphs
9. Mix up the data. Make a box plot where height is on the horizontal axis. Click on the diet
attribute to show the diet of each mammal. Separate the data so that each of the three diets has its
own box plot. Sketch (paste) the graph here and provide an analysis that compares information
between the three different diet types.
10. Mix up the data. Make a histogram with speed on the horizontal axis. Drag an icon until the
intervals break at 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 mph, stack, and then fuse the icons. Sketch (paste)
the graph here and provide an analysis.
11. Mix up the data. Place sleep on the horizontal axis and place life span on the vertical axis. Drag
a white icon up and/or left to make a scatterplot. Describe the relationship between the number of
hours a mammal sleeps and its life span. Sketch (paste) the graph here. Does the human fit well
into that pattern? Explain.
12. Investigate the questions that were posed on page 1 of this activity.
2009 Creative Teaching Grant, Ball State University – Revised, May 2015 / KG Shafer LLC
3