Have your child choose a topic that interests her and brainstorm a list of questions to
pursue on this topic. For example, if your child is interested in learning about endangered
species, take a trip to the library and find books and reference materials on various endangered
species. Before going to the library, you might come up with all sorts of questions to answer.
Such questions might include how does an animal get called an “endangered species”
and what parts of the world have the most of them.
Have your child make tables for recording and organizing information. One table might have
the name of the animal, where it lives, and the number of animals still in existence. Another
table might contain information on types of whales and also include the weight and length
of each whale.
Once your child has researched and organized information, she can then ask questions about
the data. Here are some questions to pursue:
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| Which species seem to be at greatest risk? |
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| Is there a relationship between the sizes of different whales and the number that
remain in the world? |
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| Is there a relationship between geographical habitat and an animal being endangered? |
Your child can create graphs and other displays and can then draw conclusions based on
looking and thinking about the data. For example, to help answer the last question above,
she might list and count the different endangered species by geographic region and even make
a display on a map. Your child may want to break down the species into categories such as
mammals, birds, and so forth. Once organized, the data can show whether certain regions have
more endangered species than others. The next question is “why?”
