Article Title: Wait, Have We Really Wiped Out 60 Percent of Animals?
For this week’s article, Courtney and I chose to go with an
article about animal extinction statistics. We chose this article because it gives
examples of false data leading to inaccurate conclusions and bias. We found
this text by picking article topics that we think our students would find
interesting, such as animals and extinction. The article also did not have an
overwhelming amount of complex or rare words and had vocabulary that is found
in the unit of introducing statistics and probability. The article comes from a
reputable source called The Atlantic, which has a variety of interesting
engaging articles.
When reading this article, I found many key elements that were significant to the lesson and to understanding the author’s message. Some things that I found to be most significant for the lesson was bias between animals that are studied more than others, how statistics of a small sample can skew the big picture, and how statistics can be misleading. Bias, the hinderance of smaller sample sizes, and misleading statistics were shown through examples of how animals that are studied more have more data and animals that are studies less have less data, so to get their true population numbers for those species that there is not as much known is more difficult. So, to say that in the past 40 years, 60% of animals have been wiped out is not totally accurate. With this, a quote that stuck out to me was,
Since prehistory, humans have killed off so many species of mammals that it would take 3 million to 7 million years of evolution for them to evolve an equivalent amount of diversity.
This alarming statement made me think about mammals, such as
the sabretooth tiger and the woolly mammoth. These animals were said to have
been driven to by hunters and global warming, but there is only so much to
support these theories that no one is 100% certain how they disappeared. Having
variability with humans destroying animal habitats, hunting, and polluting the
environment may have played a role in diminishing populations, but climate
changes and other environmental elements have played a role too, which is not
highlighted as heavily as human intervention. In addition, words and phrases,
such as “estimated the size of different animal populations”, percent, biases,
data, and “It is not a census of all wildlife but reports how wildlife
populations have changed in size” all contain vocabulary and verbiage that
students would see throughout a statistics course and in the first unit.
In using this text to teach students, key information in this article have to do with the variability in collecting data, sample sizes, bias, and false statistics. The background needed for this would be examples of how to spot bad data and vocabulary on words like census and biases. I believe that this text has some a few levels of meaning, such as how people can interpret statistics, how statistics does not always paint an accurate big picture, and how bias can change the meaning of statistics and messages. I feel that the overall article, however, shows one main perspective that can be possibly seen as biased based on person beliefs about the human contribution to animal extinction. This article is written in the point of view of the author and their opinion on how certain data can be misleading. You could form an opposition to the article if you are a firm supporter of human intervention causing extinction. The text does have a good, easy transition from one idea to the next and is clean in relaying information to the reader. The author refers to reports from WWF, The Guardian, and Living Planet Index. This article also has straight forward concepts and is more informational, bringing awareness to how data can be misinterpreted. The language is for a level of ability who is not familiar with how to dissect a text that contains data and how it can be misconstrued. The author is trying to convey that the statistic of saying that over the last 40 years or so that 60% of animal species have been wiped out is not totally accurate because not all variables have been accounted for in the study. This text is well organized, and I see it being a good introductory article to how statistics can be misleading.
I think that this article would be useful in making connections between real world current events and what we would be learning in class with bad data and bias. The lesson with this article would start with a recap of what bias looks like and how to determine bad data. Each student would read the article individually highlighting information that demonstrated bias and bad data and what they found interesting. After they highlighted, they would then determine the author’s message and meaning of the article. The students would then come together with a partner and participate in a think-pair-share, where they can compare the information they found to demonstrate bias and bad data, and what they took away from the article. To wrap up the class, we would come together as a class and reflect on each group’s findings and compare our opinions and thoughts on the article.
I think that this article is a good way to ease students into statistics. It allows them to see how bias and bad data can be found in real world current event. It can allow the students to form their own opinions on a text and presents an interesting topic of animal extinction. I think that with this text students can get a good understanding of bias and how data can be misconstrued.
Heather,
ReplyDeleteI really loved reading your blog post for I felt that you and Courtney found a great article. One of the things that I liked about the article is that it is current and can be used in both math and science classes. I am glad the two of you found this article because there are many instances where math is utilized in science. For instance, when determining the genotype frequencies of a species in their environment is used by the Hardy Weinberg principle. To obtain each frequency, students must use simple math division and plug the numbers into the equation and using algebra for solving the missing equation. I remember when I was in my high school biology class, we put different colored beads in a covered container and shake the beads up. Each student is to pick a colored bead out until they have removed ten from the container. I found this lab to be a fun way to teach students about genetics and how it can relate to diversity amongst organisms of the same species. Another thing I liked about your analysis was your inclusion of how this article shows bias. In all of our classes, it is imperative that we are presenting accurate information for our students to learn from.