Math Concept Reader MCR g5 park visitors

Math Concept Reader

Park Visitors

Math Concept Reader

Expedition: Antarctica

by Aenea Mickelsen

Park Visitors

by Ilse Ortabasi

Math Concept Reader

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ISBN 13: 978-0-15-360202-3

ISBN 10: 0-15-360202-3

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 179 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07

Chapter 1:

An Internet Quest

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Mrs Pacheco teaches in Denver, Colorado Every year her students conduct an Internet research project She poses

a research question and instructs students to use a variety of online resources to find the answer

This year, her students are excited about conducting research on national parks in Colorado The information the students gather will help them determine which park Mrs

Pacheco has in mind for the annual class trip Mrs Pacheco will offer clues to help the students figure out the answer

The students decide they need to find the number of visitors each park hosted last year The students will compare data from three national parks in their home state: the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Mesa Verde National Park, and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Many visitors come each year to the national parks

in Colorado.

Mr Kawanabe, the media specialist, is waiting for the students when they arrive in the media center this morning

The students log on to the Internet and launch the online search engine They enter key words like “national park”

and “visitors” to get a list of related Internet sites To narrow their search further, they enter “Colorado,” “national parks,”

and “visitors.” On the first Internet page is a link to Rocky Mountain National Park

“Wow, more than 3,000,000 people visited Rocky Mountain National Park last year!” says Alfonso “That is about six times the population of Denver I think people from all over the country and the world go there to see the beautiful mountains.”

As the students continue their searches, they learn more about the national parks in Colorado Les is surprised to learn that Great Sand Dunes National Park only became a national park in the year 2000 “This is amazing,” he says to the class

“This national park is younger than I am!”

Mesa Verde Park

Year Number of Visitors

1996 633,628

1997 648,596

1998 623,510

1999 656,023

2000 471,084

2001 537,474

2002 419,662

2003 454,742

2004 474,080

2005 519,649

Mesa Verde National Park is known for its cliff dwellings.

Mrs Pacheco interrupts the class for a moment She is ready to reveal the first clue “The park we will visit had an average of less

than 3,000,000 visitors per year during the last ten years,” she says

With that piece of information, it was clear that the class would not

be visiting Rocky Mountain National Park

Raul conducts another search and locates the link to Mesa Verde National Park He finds data that show how many people

visited Mesa Verde over a ten-year period He reads about the parkʼs

special features, too Mesa Verde has more than 4,000 known

archaeological sites Its cliff dwellings are some of the most notable

and best preserved in the United States

The parkʼs Internet site recommends that visitors plan to spend

a day or two exploring the cliff dwellings and beautiful landscapes

Mesa Verde reflects more than 700 years of history of the ancestral

Pueblo people They built homes on the steep cliffs, and reached

those homes with long ladders

Visitors at Mesa Verde National Park

Years

700,000

400,000 350,000

450,000 500,000 550,000 600,000 650,000

300,000 250,000 200,000 0

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Mrs Pacheco suggests that the class make a graph to show how the number of park visitors has changed over the past ten years

There are many kinds of graphs They could make a bar graph or a

circle graph, but a line graph is used to show change over time The

students can use this graph to show the number of visitors to Mesa

Verde over a ten-year period

Mrs Pacheco demonstrates how to make a line graph She puts the years on the horizontal axis The number of visitors goes on the

vertical axis

Using the data they have found for Mesa Verde National Park, the students create a line graph The graph shows the number of

visitors for each year from 1996 through 2005 Representing the

data in this way makes it easier for the students to see how the

number of park visitors has changed from year to year

Chapter 2:

Where Will the Class Visit?

Visitors enjoy building sand castles at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

+

Students discover many interesting facts about the national parks as they continue their Internet searches For example,

at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, visitors are allowed to slide down the sand dunes on a piece of cardboard

They can build sand castles by the creek, or earn a Junior Park Ranger badge

This sounds like lots of fun to Marissa She wonders whether she would like the sand dunes or the cliff dwellings

at Mesa Verde more She canʼt decide Both parks sound like fascinating places to visit

Stephen is thinking about the pictures of cliff dwellings and the tall wooden ladders He hopes that they will go to Mesa Verde because he loves climbing and adventure

Mr Kawanabe helps Marissa and Raul find visitor data for the Great Sand Dunes Park They record the data in a table in their math notebooks

Visitors at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Years

320,000

200,000 0

220,000 240,000 260,000 280,000 300,000

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

By this time, the class has completed their research on visitor data They have gathered visitor information for Mesa Verde National Park and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve In their math notebooks, the students construct

a line graph to show changes in the number of visitors over time

When they analyze the graphs, they discover that at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the greatest number

of visitors came in 1996 and the least number of visitors came

in 1997 They wonder why there would be such a difference just one year apart Mr Kawanabe says that would be a good research question Perhaps they will study that another day

The data also tell them that both parks combined had fewer than 3,000,000 visitors each year over a ten-year period

The class waits for the next clue so they can discover which park they will visit this year

Visitors at Two National Parks

Years

700,000

100,000 0

200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

656,023

419,662 312,225

232,663

Mesa Verde Great Sand Dunes

Mrs Pacheco is ready She announces, “The class trip will be

to the park that had the lesser range of numbers of people visiting

over ten years.” She explains what she means “The range is the

difference between the greatest and the least numbers of visitors in

each set of data.”

Seth has an idea He decides to merge the two line graphs This way he can see the greatest and least number of visitors in each park

on one graph He thinks it will make comparing the data easier

Zack finds the points that show the greatest and least numbers of visitors on each line and writes the value next to the points on each

graph in his math notebook Together they compare the visitor data

of both parks They see right away that Great Sand Dunes National

Park and Preserve has had fewer visitors than Mesa Verde National

Park They still need to find the range of the number of visitors in

each park to find the answer to Mrs Pachecoʼs question

This sign welcomes visitors to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Marissa knows that she must find the difference between the greatest and least numbers in the Great Sand Dunes data set to find

the range of visitors Similarly, the range of visitors at Mesa Verde is

the difference between the greatest and least numbers in its data set

Marissa compares the two graphs Seth and Zack have drawn

She looks at each line and compares the point with the greatest

number of visitors to the point with the least number of visitors

Marissa writes an equation to find the range of visitors at Mesa

Verde National Park

656,023 – 419,662 = 236,361 The range is 236,361

Then she writes an equation to find the range of visitors for the Great Sand Dunes

312,225 – 232,663 = 79,562 The range is 79,562

Marissa has the answer “Our trip will be to the Great Sand Dunes! The range is less for the Great Sand Dunes than for Mesa

Verde.”

Chapter 3:

A Trip to the Sand Dunes

The day of the trip arrives at last and the students load the bus with camping gear, food, and other supplies Finally, the group of 32 students and adults climbs aboard The bus begins the journey to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

There is lots of chatter as the students talk about their trip

Some students look forward to sliding down the sand dunes

Others are excited about building sand castles by the creek

The entire group can hardly wait to get to the park

When they arrive at the entrance to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the park ranger counts how many people are on the bus Because there are 32 people in all, he directs them to the group campground

The Great Sand Dunes constantly change in appearance as wind blows through the valley.

Rico has a park brochure and he reads it aloud so the class can learn more about this national park He reads that the Great Sand Dunes are the tallest sand dunes in North America They cover 39 square miles and rise to almost 750 feet above the floor of Coloradoʼs San Luis Valley Thatʼs as tall as a skyscraper more than 60 stories high!

Over thousands of years, the winds blew across the valley and carried sand with them, forming the dunes Since the winds blew mostly in the same direction, the sand built up and formed the dunes The dunes are held in place by water flowing from the mountains surrounding the valley Today, as the wind continues to blow, it moves more sand through the valley, constantly changing the appearance of the dunes

Visitors camp

in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

As evening comes, the group pitches tents and prepares dinner

Everyone gathers around the campfire after dinner, where they

are joined by Jennifer, another park ranger, who introduces Mrs

Pachecoʼs class to some of the wildlife they can see in the park

As Jennifer talks about the park, Raul asks her, “Why do the park rangers count the number of visitors?” Jennifer explains that

the people who manage the park need to know how many visitors

to expect each year and even month by month Knowing how many

visitors have come in the past helps the park administrators estimate

how many visitors will come in the future This information helps

the staff prepare for the people who come to the park They need to

plan for enough campsites, restrooms, hiking trails, and rangers

Marissa remembers the big difference between the number of visitors in 1996 and 1997, and she asks Jennifer about it Jennifer

says that one or two years can have surprising data, so they watch

for trends in the data They donʼt depend on data from just one or

two years

Each park has a variety of plant and animal wildlife.

“Visitors arenʼt the only things we count here at the park,”

Jennifer says “We also count plants and animals We want to know about the variety of plant and animal wildlife that lives here.”

Jennifer tells the group about one project they are currently conducting at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve This project counts the number of elk in the park and wildlife researchers are helping with the project

“We want to know whether the elk population in the park is growing or shrinking from year to year,” Jennifer explains

“We gather and analyze the data It is important to know this information in order to determine whether the elk herd will have sufficient food to survive the winter months.”

Biologists count the wildlife population in the parks.

Marissa thinks the project sounds interesting, but she is puzzled She wonders how the park rangers can possibly count wild animals that constantly move around and are usually hiding from people She asks Jennifer to explain how animals are counted

“Most of the time, the animals living in an area cannot

be counted exactly,” Jennifer says “Rangers usually have to estimate the numbers of animals It becomes quite a tricky business! Biologists have invented clever ways of counting animals in a population Sometimes they look for tracks or droppings and then make estimates of the number of animals

For large animals, like elk, they may use airplanes and count animals they can see from the air Animals such as elk, whitetail deer, black bears, jackrabbits, or prairie dogs do not come through the parkʼs gate and let themselves be counted.”

Everybody laughs at this comment The class visualizes all the animals standing in line to be counted

The Tiger beetle and the Sandhill crane can be found

in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Jennifer continues to share stories and pictures of the different species of animals that live in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve She talks about the sand dunesʼ tiger beetle, which is found nowhere else on Earth She talks about migratory birds About 30,000 Sandhill cranes migrate through the San Luis Valley twice a year

“Will we see the cranes or any wild animals while we are here?” asks Raul “Yes, you probably will,” Jennifer answers

“But if you do, you must be sure to keep your distance

And donʼt ever give a wild animal any food That will keep you safe and keep the animals healthy.” She concludes by reminding everyone that they are visitors to the park, but the animals live there year round This place is the animalsʼ home Visitors need to respect the open space and its residents

By now, it is late The group sings a few camp songs Then they crawl into their sleeping bags Tomorrow will be a day full of fun and adventure on the dunes!