Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing the wolf tracking project. I have mapped the two years of data color coded by season for both wolf 879 and 881. When I went to the next step of outlining their season territories, many of the locations are not touching another marked square. How do I connect these outlying squares to find total territory areas?

Claire

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Hi Claire,

This is a neat project that I haven't seen before. So, thank you for introducing me to this science fair project idea!

To get from one square to another square, the wolf will have to cross the squares in between. For example, if you had two locations on opposite sides of the grid, the wolf's territory includes some of the squares in the center of the grid. You might know now which squares, specifically, the wolf might have been in. The animal might have taken a direct path from one square to the other, or the wolf could have taken a zig-zag pattern that took the wolf across many squares. You can't know for certain with the data that you have.

I think the best way to handle this issue is to choose a method and be very clear in your procedure about how you dealt with it. It's important that you use the same approach for all of the wolves in your study. For example, you could assume that wolves took the most direct path between the two squares. This would probably give you a lower limit on the territory area of each wolf.

Post back if you have more questions!