Lesson 6 Student Activity Sheets
NAME:
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Unit Question: What explains what’s been happening to big
animals in the Serengeti for the past four decades?
PERIOD: _______________________ DATE:
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Lesson 6 Student Activity Sheets: What was going on with the
Wildebeest?
WARM-UP:
1. What did we decide that we wanted to investigate today?
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2. What are the next steps we should take to answer our question
today?
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PART 1 PROCEDURE:
3. Analyze the graphs below. The top graph is the buffalo
population graph you have previously examined. The bottom graph is
the wildebeest population in the Serengeti during the same time
period. What patterns do you notice in the table and graph? Record
these in the space called Observations.
4. Then, answer the initial ideas question that follows. Be
ready to share your ideas!
Observations
INITIAL IDEAS:
5. What are your initial ideas for why the trends in the buffalo
population numbers look similar to the trends in the wildebeest
populations? Now look at the years between 1970 and 1975 what do
you notice about the different populations? What could explain that
dramatic jump in the wildebeest population?
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PART 2 PROCEDURE:
6. Examine the data sources below about the wildebeest and the
buffalo. Don’t forget to read the captions!
7. Identity the factors that seem to affect the buffalo and
wildebeest. Keep track of your findings about each of the
population factors in the comparison table provided.
Map 2: The dots represent herds of buffalo in the Serengeti.
Buffalo herds tend to stay in the areas where they live. Image
taken from: Metzgar et al., 2010.
COMPARING BUFFALO AND WILDEBEEST TABLE
Factor
Wildebeest
Buffalo
CONCLUSIONS:
8. Use the table you made that compares the buffalo and
wildebeest to explain why the wildebeest population increase more
than buffalo population from 1970 -1975. Make some predictions
about what the populations of these two animals will look like in
the future.
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NEXT STEPS:
9. What questions do you have about how all the factors you
identified interact to affect the animal populations in the
Serengeti?
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These materials were developed with funding through grants from
the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, Denver Public Schools to Northwestern University and
the University of Colorado Boulder.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
