Naomi White, Jefferson High School

Background and Information

In this next procedure, you will attempt to count a population that is moving. Suppose you were trying to count the number of a certain kind of endangered birds in an area. You would not want to capture and tag for fear of hurting the birds. How could you count them if they were flying from place to place? How would you know if you have already counted them when you changed locations? To make an estimate of a bird population, scientists often use many people to help them count.

In this next activity you and your classmates will count the number of California gulls on campus. Your group will be assigned an area to look for gulls. At the assigned time, your group will count the number of gulls in the area. When you return to the classroom, we will compile all the groups' data.

The gulls travel from the beach inland in order to find food- There are many gulls on school grounds because they eat leftover food. Data about gulls can help us answer many questions. For example, at what time do the majority of gulls arrive on campus? (Do they "know" when nutrition or lunch time is?) Do dirty campuses have more gulls? Are there as many gulls on Monday (after 2 days with no food) as Friday? As a class, discuss the types of questions. Decide on a question that you will answer. Then write a lab report with a hypothesis, objective, materials, procedure, data, and conclusion.

Lab Format

Question:

Objective:

Hypothesis:

Materials:

Procedure:

Data:

Results of Gary Serbeniuk's class studies at Manual Arts School, Los Angeles