Have your child choose a topic that interests her and then brainstorm
a list of questions 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, come up with some 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.
For example, 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 about the data. Here are some questions to pursue:
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| Which species are at greatest risk? |
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| Is there a relationship between the sizes of different whales
and the number of whales 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 then becomes “why?”
