Thinking About Data and Infographics on Thursday

Well have you heard the term infographic before?  info = information and graphic = how something is drawn out or represented, like a graph or a a photograph.   Here is an example of one that we analyzed today based on our closer investigation into the whale shark and it's amazing body adaptations.  Did you know it's a filter feeder?  How about that it feeds on plankton?  This led us to our question what exactly is plankton?  Well here you go here is a wonderful infographic that explains it:

Can you see the connections to our learning?  The food webs,  life cycles and adaptations.  This then connected to our sorting and categorizing when we realized that there are two categories of plankton:   phytoplankton = microscopic marine plants and zooplankton = diverse marine animals such as krill, fish larvae, jellyfish.  As you can see from the infographic these are important supporters of the ocean ecosystem.  

We realized that the whale sharks mouth is built like a funnel and that learned that it filters through columns of this plankton, continuously as it swims.  

This then connected us back to the length of the whale shark compared to the the blue whale and we took the meter sticks out into the hallway to show exactly how big the blue whale is.  First we used standardized measurement and then non-standard, our bodies.  Have a look 

 It turns out that it takes 19 and 1/4 students to equal the 25 m  length of a blue whale.  Amazing!

Here's another piece of activist art from our favorite artist Louis Massai -  the red panda, one of the endangered species we have been studying.  

A scene shot of the #redpanda - painted in #shanghai Which is an #endangered #species from #china - its numbers have decreased by 50% in the last three generations (18 years)! There are many reasons for their decline... from overpopulating humans - to canine disease... perhaps the worst impacting factor is #deforestation - the pandas mostly eat bamboo and the lack of growth after the flowering season, (due to increased deforestation) leaves the pandas with a severe lack of food... in addition farmed cattle compete for the same preferred environment that the pandas depend on! The red pandas bushy tails are also prized for wedding attire, apparently it brings good luck! Not lucky for the species though! This project with @color_way_of_love has given me the opportunity to highlight this sad story to a nation that the #giantpanda (recently removed from the endangered list) is so highly respected! I hope that the red panda can one day join its non related, cousin the giant panda in conservation success! Shout outs to my homeslice @shanghai_dream for the photo! ONE LOVE