Desktop Ecology and “Biomaths” – Online course

Educational design: Dr. Tony Chiovitti

In this course, you will collect and use data on four animal species along a model sea shore and progress through a series of tasks to present and analyse the data. You will learn how to calculate and interpret statistical measures, such as Simpson’s Diversity Index, the population mean, standard deviation, and standard error, and to make correlations. The course also includes a tutorial on manipulating data in Excel.

To complete the exercises as we progress through the tutorials, download the following items:

• Tabletop Sea Shore (ideally printed in colour on A3)
• Quadrats (printed to the same size as the Tabletop Sea Shore, and cut along the external and internal borders)
• Transect Table

For tutorials 2-6, it will also be helpful to have access to an Excel spread sheet.

Level - VCE Biology Unit 2

Estimated duration - 90 minutes

Click the 'Activate this course' button below, then click 'Collecting data' in the list that appears below to begin.