Real-Life Math
According to Wayne Goodey, an animal behaviorist, people in his field "shine a light on the broad picture of biodiversity and evolution in nature."
Animal behaviorists work as consultants and lecturers in universities. They study the psychology, physiology and sociology of animals. They consult veterinarians, farmers and large cattle operations.
Organizations distribute animal behaviorists' reports to farmers and caretakers of animals. People must be able to interpret your data. So in order for animal behaviorists to be able to accomplish these tasks, they must be able to interpret research studies and scientific reports. For them to do this, they must know how to analyze statistical information.
"Many theories one is trying to test are drawn on a mathematical format, for example a graph form," says Goodey. "Animal behaviorists must be able to interpret a math illustration."
You are an animal behaviorist and you want to present a study to farmers that proves that pigs that are type A blood would be more partial to digestive problems than pigs with other blood types.
First, a researcher will collect the information by taking blood samples from numerous pigs on a farm. The animal behaviorist will then translate the data into a more understandable form for the farmer. You could use a pie chart, for example.
This is the raw data collected by the researcher:
Twenty-five pigs were given blood tests to determine their blood types: A, B, O and AB. The types of blood will be used to determine the percentage of pigs that would be more partial to having digestive problems.
| A | B | B | AB | O |
| O | O | B | AB | B |
| B | B | O | A | O |
| A | O | O | O | AB |
| AB | A | O | B | A |
This is how you would solve this problem:
Step 1: Count the number of pigs with the 3 different blood types. For example, there are 7 pigs with type B blood.
Step 2: After you have tallied the number of pigs with each blood type, you will have to find the percentage of pigs with each blood type. To do this, you will be using this formula:
Percentage = T / N x 100
T = The number of pigs with each blood type
N= Total number of pigs in the set (the total number of pigs in the set is 25)