Math Day at the MN Zoo
Math = Healthy Animals!
Math is an important part of a zoo’s daily routine. Each day zookeepers and animal care staff carefully analyze, weigh, and prepare diets for the animals at the Minnesota Zoo. In fact, math is used all over the zoo- from cashiers distributing the correct amount of chance to exhibit designers building fences high enough to keep a leopard from jumping out of its enclosure.
The Minnesota Zoo’s annual Math Day event will include stations set up throughout the zoo that provide an opportunity for students to think like a zookeeper, exhibit designer, or aquarist. Each station will ask students to collect information from exhibits or displays in order to solve real life standards based mathematical problems, each level slightly harder than the previous to challenge different grade levels and abilities. Station topics include animal exhibit design, animal diets, conservation and SCUBA diving- all of which are essential parts of animal care and zoo operations at the Minnesota Zoo.
Join us to show your students that learning math is important for being successful in the real world!
Below is a sample of a station from a previous event.
The black-tailed prairie dog is a true ground squirrel found on prairies and semi-desert of the northwestern United States. They are very social animals and live in family groups. Their diet in the wild is primarily short grasses, broad-leaved herbs, roots, seeds, and insects. At the Minnesota Zoo, this is the menu enjoyed by the colony of prairie dogs:
1 kg primate chow
1 kg Labblox
2 – 3 carrots, sliced
(serves 15 prairie dogs, fed once daily)
- Imagine you are the zookeeper for these animals. How much food would you need to prepare to feed 30 prairie dogs for one day?
- The zoo’s scale only gives weight in pounds. How many pounds of primate chow would you need to feed 15 prairie dogs? (Hint: 1 lb. = 2.12 kilograms)
- The zoo’s prairie dog colony consists of 50 individuals. What percentage of the colony would be fed with the menu?
Elementary Math Day (3rd – 5th) November 4th, 2015 9:00 – 1:30
Middle School Math Day (6th – 8th) November 5th, 2015 9:00 – 1:30
For more information and to register, visit our website mnzoo.org or call 952-431-9218.
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