Sorting a school birdwatch into a table and bar chart

What you are doing

Year 4 at Ysgol y Wern watched birds for 1 hour. They made a card for every bird they saw. The cards are a muddle of names. Your job is to turn them into a table, a spreadsheet and a bar chart that answer questions quickly.

Step 1: tally the log

Go along each row of cards on the stimulus sheet, from card 1 to card 48. For each card, draw 1 tally mark next to that bird. The 5th mark crosses the first 4, like a gate.

Check: the log has 6 rows of 8 cards. How many cards is that? ______ Does it match your total? If not, tally again.

Step 2: a pretend spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a grid. Columns have letters. Rows have numbers. Each box is a cell, named by its column and row, like B3.

(a) Copy your totals into column B. Put the total of all the birds in cell B9.

(b) Which cell holds the number of robins? ________   What number is in cell B4? ________

(c) Spreadsheets can sort data. Sort it yourself: write the birds again, from the most seen to the least seen.

(d) In your sorted sheet, what is in cell A2? ________   What is in cell B8? ________

Step 3: draw a bar chart

1. Use your sorted sheet. Draw the bars in the same order, most to least.
2. Write each bird’s name on a line under the bottom axis.
3. The side axis goes up in 2s. An odd number, like 7, is halfway between 6 and 8.
4. Use a ruler. Make every bar the same width. Colour them in.
5. Write a title in the top box. Write a label for each axis in the dashed boxes.

Step 4: answer questions

Use your table or your bar chart.

Step 5: sort with two rules

A bird database can find birds using two questions at once. A Carroll diagram does the same job on paper. Use your totals and the bird fact cards on the stimulus sheet. Write each of the 7 birds in the right box.

Careful: is 6 “more than 6”?

A database search asks: seen more than 6 times and shorter than 20 cm. Which birds does it find?

Step 6: which is best, and is it true?

(a) You now have 4 ways of showing the same birds: the log, the spreadsheet, the bar chart and the Carroll diagram. Which one is best for each question?

(b) Cards 18 to 24 were one flock of starlings. Without that flock, how many starlings were seen? ______ Which bird would then be seen the most? ____________

(c) Gethin says: “Our birdwatch proves that starlings are the most common bird in Wales.” Do you agree? Give 2 reasons.

(d) How could you collect better data to test Gethin’s idea?

Step by step

1. 5 min Read the stimulus sheet with your teacher.
2. 10 min Step 1: tally all 48 cards and check your total.
3. 8 min Step 2: fill in the spreadsheet, then sort it from most to least.
4. 12 min Step 3: draw the bar chart with a ruler.
5. 6 min Step 4: answer the questions.
6. 7 min Step 5: the Carroll diagram.
7. 7 min Step 6: which is best, and is Gethin right?

If you finish early

• Make a new Carroll diagram. Rules: seen more than 6 times or not, and has some red or orange feathers or not. Use the bird fact cards.
• The house sparrow was seen 10 times. Which 2 other birds, added together, were also seen 10 times? Find 2 different answers.