Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/9067
Title: Modeling Chance Processes in a Classroom’s Ecological Investigation
Authors: Wisittanawat, Panchompoo
Dickes, Amanda
Lehrer, Richard
Keywords: Learning Sciences
Issue Date: 2022
Publisher: International Society of the Learning Sciences
Citation: Wisittanawat, P., Dickes, A., & Lehrer, R. (2022). Modeling chance processes in a classroom’s ecological investigation. In Chinn, C., Tan, E., Chan, C., & Kali, Y. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2022 (pp. 719-726). International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Abstract: The work of ecologists entails structuring variability by parsing random and directed variability. Middle-grade students are often introduced to ideas about probability and statistics in mathematics, but these ideas are rarely employed in science investigations. This paper reports on a design study in one 7th-grade science classroom that participated in a citizen-science project investigating changes in invasive crab populations. Students surveyed crab abundance at one field site, contributing observations to a citizen-science database. Finding an unexpected ratio between male and female crabs in their sample, students compared the ratio obtained in the field to a simulated sampling distribution of ratios in light of an equiprobable assumption. Finding that their sample’s sex ratio was improbable yet consistent with samples in the larger database instigated a search for ecological mechanism. Evidence of student thinking in classroom conversations point to seeds of distinguishing random from directed variability.
Description: Long Paper
URI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22318/icls2022.719
https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/9067
Appears in Collections:ISLS Annual Meeting 2022

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