Capture/Recapture - Proportions Math Activity

Use proportions to show capture/recapture and how it's used in real-life.

Go over the directions and example as a class.

Go over the deer example together as a class.  Students can show work in the blank space to the left.

Once the activity has been explained, students can get their supplies.

Supplies needed for each group (groups of 2 works great):
1.  Small paper bag filled with 2 dixie cups worth regular (orange) Goldfish Crackers
2.  Dixie cup filled with pretzel Goldfish (or colored Goldfish without the orange crackers)

Students then follow along with the worksheet, which has step-by-step directions.

5 Trials is best.  I used 3 because of the time factor.

Students at work during the activity.

First students count how many pretzel Goldfish or colorful Goldfish are in the dixie cup.  The colorful fish or
pretzel fish represent the tagged fish in the population.

After students recapture using the same dixie cup, they count how many tagged fish there are and how many total fish were recaptured.  Then, they record their results in the table.

Worksheet examples:

This student had 27 colorful fish in the dixie cup, which is recorded at the top.  The table
represents the number of tagged and the total number of fish recaptured in each dixie cup scoop.

Worksheet used to determine how close the estimations were compared to the actual population.
This student's estimations were off by 8 fish.  I've had perfect estimations before.

Another student example:

2013 pictures.