Animals & Numeracy

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6-12

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Funder: Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Animals & Numeracy

Explore how humans and many other animals share a primitive sense of numbers in this video from NOVA: The Great Math Mystery. Scientific experiments with lemurs and rhesus monkeys have shown that animals can compare quantities of objects even without language or symbols for numbers. Similar tests that ask humans to respond quickly to a touchscreen to compare quantities (without counting) produce similar results. The ability to perceive number may be preprogrammed into our brains and may have been fundamental to the invention/discovery of mathematics and the transformation of human culture through science, technology, and engineering.

Visit the program page here.

Support Materials

Activity

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

test and reflect on their innate numeracy skills
consider methods for estimating quantity when counting is not feasible

Common Core Standards

HSN.Q.A.2; HSN.Q.A.3

Materials

“Which Is Greater?” Picture PDF

Procedure

After watching the “Animals & Numeracy” video segment, ask students about the methods they use to determine quantity other than counting:

How can someone estimate a quantity if they do not have time to count each individual item?
How do people estimate the number of items in very large groups? For example, how could you estimate the number of people at a concert?

In this task, students will have time to compare quantities, but they will not have time to count. Instead, they will have to rely on their innate sense of quantity and numeracy.

Explain that students will be testing their number sense with a competition. Students will see two pictures, and they will have to determine which picture shows more shapes. Then, students will estimate the difference in number of shapes between the two pictures. Students will only have a few seconds to make these decisions, so they will have to rely on their instinctual number sense. The student who comes closest to the actual difference wins!

Divide students into groups of three. Within each group, one student should act as the facilitator (students can switch off if they prefer). The other two students will compete to guess the difference between pictures. Each student should have a pen and paper.

The facilitator should show the teams one set of pictures from the “Which Is Greater?” PDF for 3 seconds, then hide it. Have each guesser write down which picture they believe had more shapes.

Then ask the facilitator to show the same set of pictures for another 3 seconds, then hide it again. Have each guesser write down their estimates of the difference. The facilitator can reveal the answer at this point; the answer key is at the end of the “Which Is Greater?” PDF.

After each team has tried a few pictures, discuss the activity:

Was this activity challenging? If so, what made it difficult?
How did you determine which picture had more shapes in such a short amount of time?
How did you estimate the difference in the number of shapes between the pictures?
Did you feel like you had an instinctual sense of which picture had more shapes?
Do you think number sense is instinctual, or is it something humans and animals learn over time?

Discussion Questions

What is meant by the phrase "primitive number sense"?
Why would it be advantageous for animals to have the ability to grasp numeracy?
How do researchers test numeracy in lemurs?
Why do you think the researchers made it a point to vary the size, shape, and color of the objects used in the tests?
Why might there be variability in number sense among humans, but not as much among lemurs?
Describe some ways that you use number sense in your everyday life.