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 A
description of the
project:
During the month of January 2001, 2K participated in an
Internet project called "National Pet Census 2001" which is
sponsored by the School District of Philadelphia, PA Office
of Information Technology. The purpose of the project was to
collect data from students around the country in order to
answer these driving questions:
- What is the most common pet
found in America?
- Are some pets more popular in
specific regions of the country?
Our
questions about the total census
data:
After a short introduction to the project, we began the
project by generating questions we think might be answered
when the National Pet Census 2001 data has all been
collected:
- Do people in different states
or regions have the same or different
pets?
- Do people in cold and hot
places have the same pets?
- Do people have outside pets,
inside pets, or both?
- Does the location affect pet
care due to the weather conditions?
- Does the location affect food
for the pets?
- What is the least common
pet?
- What is the most popular
pet?
Read the answers
to our questions about the overall census.
Our
questions about the Richard
data:
Before we added the Richards numbers, we worked together to
list the questions we had that might be answered by the
Richards census:
- How many Richards students have
pets?
- What is the most popular pet at
Richards?
- Are different pets more popular
at different grades?
- How many Richards students have
unusual or exotic pets at Richards?
- How many Richards students have
"regular" pets?
- How many Richards students have
several different pets?
- How many pets do Richards
students have in all?
Read the answers
to our questions about the Richards census.
Our
procedure for collecting
data:
We invited all Richards students in grades 1-5 to
participate in the local Pet Census project. Before visiting
their classrooms, we discussed what we needed to do when we
collected data, such as introduce ourselves, be polite,
speak loudly and clearly, count and record data carefully,
and thank the students and teachers for participating in the
project. We practiced by collecting our own 2K class data
and rehearsing our team presentations before visiting the
other classrooms.
We worked in five data collection
teams, one team for each grade level 1-5. On January 17-18
we visited 18 classrooms and questioned 392 students about
which pets they have at home. After we finished our data
collection, each grade level team added the data from each
of the grade level classrooms they visited. Next the entire
class added the data each from each grade level team to find
out the total numbers for the entire school project.
Results
of the Richards Pet Census
Read the results
of our data collection at Richards School.
2K
Pet Stories with
Illustrations
Read stories
about the pets 2K students
have at home or pets they wish they owned. Students wrote
the stories and proofread them with partners. Next they used
pencils, crayons, colored pencils, and thin markers to draw
pictures of their pets on tagboard. The teacher typed the
final drafts of their stories then added scanned images of
their illustrations to the web pages.
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