Students will explore rounding and estimation techniques on whole numbers by examining data pertaining to the island nation of Madagascar.

For this activity, I typically show my students a brief youtube video about the biodiversity of Madagascar. Then in small groups of three or four, the students gain experience with rounding numbers to various place values and using those numbers to estimate likely future values.

In this activity, your students will gain exposure to the following mathematical concepts within the scope of discussing biodiversity and the sensitivity of ecology to development:

*Completing data tables by rounding numbers to specified place values.

*Computing multiplication and division operations followed by rounding of answers. (A great time to talk about waiting to round off values until after completing our computations)

*Plotting data points on a line graph and using the trend of the graph to estimate a future value.

*Working with values ranging from the hundreds up to the tens of millions.

I am attaching the activity sheet in .PDF form and as a Microsoft word file so that you may edit it as you see fit. I am also including the answer key in a .pdf file for my original activity sheet.

Have fun! Joseph Huston

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