Teaching Suggestions
Have
students imagine themselves as scientists. Challenge them to write a
report to summarize what the data on the pie charts show. After discussion,
have them design a conservation plan based on what they know about the
importance of 12 sanctuaries. Ask:
-
Why is the information in these pie charts important to scientists who are working to protect monarch habitat?
-
Why is it important to have more than one year of information about the number of monarchs in each sanctuary?
- What mistakes might scientists make if they had information from only one winter?
- Which sanctuary do you think is the most important to protect?
- Which sanctuaries are the three most important?
Discussion
Questions
Help students discover which of these questions they
can answer by looking at these charts:
- Are the monarch butterflies spread evenly among all of the 12 sanctuaries?
- Do the monarchs seem to prefer some sanctuaries over others? Are they the same sanctuaries each year?
-
Which three sanctuaries did most monarchs select this year (2008) and last year (2007)?
-
Which sanctuary changed the most in use between last year and this year?
- Why do you suppose monarchs select one colony over another? What factors might be involved?
- Do monarchs seem to prefer certain sanctuaries every year? If so, which ones?
- Which do monarchs seem to prefer the least?
- What might happen next year? Predict how the chart will look--and plan to come back to see!
