Sustainability and Mathematics
An Individual Project
Part I)
Making a Difference (Environmental Issues, a series of activities)
Do a research on Salt Marshes and their important role in the ecosystem. Write a paper to address the
following questions. Your paper should be at least one page in single space, font 12 and 1 inch margin all
around.
1) What is the meaning of Sustainability or Sustainable development?
2) Define Salt Marshes and their important role in ecosystem.
3) What is a Fiddler Crab? Talk about Fiddler crab’s role in the ecosystem of Salt Marsh.
Part II)
A Public Service Announcement
This activity requires you to identify a single environmental issue, and develop a strategy to acquire
support for solving the problem within your community. As you will learn a few facts about the issue,
your main job will be to convince your classmates that they should be committed to helping solve the
problem.
Select one environmental issue you feel passionate about, learn all you can about it, but most importantly,
identify the reason why people should really care about the issue. Your job will be to develop a television,
radio, newspaper or internet public service announcement that will invite your classmates to make a
personal commitment to help the environment.
Remember, before you can ask others to make a commitment, you must make the commitment yourself.
You may make a small visual poster, or type in your TV, Radio, or Internet announcement.
The issues you will choose could focus on energy, water, purchasing, products and waste, grounds and
buildings, biodiversity, ….)
Part III)
Open a PDF file on our Class Web page titled “Salt Marshes Math Lab”. After reading the introduction,
please complete the Math skills practice sheet based on the figures and data provided in that file.
SALT MARSHES MATH Lab
Forests are good natural carbon sinks. Trees take up carbon from the atmosphere, they photosynthesize,
they store that carbon, and they turn it into wood. But forests are not the only ecosystems that store a lot
of carbon. In fact, coastal ecosystems mainly mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses take up and store
large amounts of carbon as well. One of the reasons that these coastal ecosystems are just now being
recognized as important carbon sinks is because most of the carbon in these ecosystems is stored below
ground in the soil. So it's not in the biomass of the trees the way it is in a forest, where we can see that
carbon. In these coastal systems, it's almost entirely below ground where we can't see it. These soils
under these coastal ecosystems tend to be several meters deep and they often store carbon that is
decades if not thousands of years old." Says a NOAA expert, an ecosystem ecologist and bio- geochemist
Dr. Ariana Sutton-Grier (Resource: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/podcast/may14/mw124bluecarbon.html)
One of the ways blue carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere by the marshes (at rates ten times
higher than most forested systems) is by “sucking in” the carbon dioxide through rain water and air and
storing it in the spongy bay mud, called peat, at 2-6 feet deep. The bay mud has been storing CO2 as long
as it existed. If disturbed or destroyed, they release the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
So, how does the rain water get to the peat? The ecosystem depends on its many habitants to achieve this.
Fiddler crabs are one of these organisms. They live in large colonies and burrow holes 30.5 cm to 92 cm
deep, thus allowing air and rain water to reach the depths of peat, allowing spongy peat to absorb the
water. These crabs ingest particles of sand and mud and they use their mouths to scrape up the food
materials from the sediment and then deposit the sediment back on the ground in sand pallets (they look
like small pyramids of sand balls, one pile in one day). One fiddler crab consumes 0.4 grams of food
materials every 6 hours. During this process they keep the marsh healthy by: (1) allowing the peat to
“breath”; and (2) controlling the spread of bacteria
(http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Uca_pugilator/
Fiddler crabs live in colonies. One of the ways you can identify a male crab from a female is by brighter
color and its large claw that is at least four times larger than the other.
During a research field trip, a group of scientists came across a big colony of Fiddler crabs. They
estimated diameter of each burrow to be close to 1.3 cm. They captured several fiddler crabs, recorded
several measurements and released the crabs back to their habitat.
Math Skills Practice:
Refer to the introductory text, figures 1, 2, 3 to answer the following questions:
Question
1. Based on the 1m grid in Figure 3, estimate the number of fiddler crab
burrows per square meter (assume an average of 2 borrows per each
25 cm2 increments).
2. Assuming these burrows are cylindrical tubes. Calculate the
minimum amount of rain water one burrow holds in cm3.
3. Calculate the maximum amount of rain water one burrow holds, in
cm3.
4. Based on your answers to questions 1 and 2, calculate the minimum
amount of rain water these burrows allow to sip into peat per square
meter.
Answer
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
4._______________
5. Based on your answers to questions 1 and 3, calculate the maximum
amount of rain water these burrows allow to sip into peat per square
meter.
5._______________
6. Approximate number of crabs in 1 square meter? ( assume only one
crab lives in every, borrow)
6._______________
7. How much food material, in grams, will a colony of crabs (similar to
ours in figure 3) occupying 100 square meters consume in a 6 hour
period?
8. How much of the fungi, in grams, does the colony consume in the 6
hour period? (assuming food material consists of: 25% fungi, 33%
diatoms, 20% vascular plants; and almost 22% unknown materials).
9. How much of the diatoms, in grams, does the colony consume in the 6
hour period?
10. Based on the data in the Figure 1, how many fiddler crabs were
caught?
7. _______________
8. _______________
9. _______________
10. ______________
11. What percentage of the caught crabs were males?
11.______________
12. What percentage of the caught crabs were females?
12. ______________
13. What is the average length of a male fiddler crab large claw?
13. ______________
14. What is the average width of a female crab?
14. ______________
15. What is the average width of a male crab?
15. ______________
16. What is the average height of a female crab?
16. ______________
17. What is the average height of a male crab?
17. ______________
18. Which gender crab was wider?
18. ______________
19. By how much? (in cm )
19. ______________
20. What is the ratio of left-handed crabs (L) to right-handed ones (R)?
20. ______________
21. What is the ratio of male crabs to females?
21. ______________
22. What percent of crabs with width of 1.2 cm are males?
22. ______________
Chincoteague Field Station, VA; May 14, 2014 data:
Male (L/R)/Female Big claw length (cm) Width (cm) Height (cm)
Female
0.9
0.7
Female
1
0.8
Female
1.1
0.7
Female
1.1
0.7
Female
1.1
0.6
Female
1.2
0.8
Female
1.7
1.1
L
1
1.2
0.8
L
1.7
1.5
1.1
L
2.9
1.7
1.2
L
3
1.6
1.1
L
3.1
1.8
1.3
R
1.2
1.2
0.8
R
1.3
1.2
0.8
R
1.5
1.2
0.8
R
1.5
1.4
0.8
R
1.8
2.8
1.3
R
2.2
1.6
1.2
R
2.2
1.6
1.1
R
3.2
2.2
1.3
R
3.3
1.9
1.2
Figure 1: Wallops Island Salt Marshes Data
Figure 2: Fiddler Crab Physiology
Figure 3: 1 square meter grid with 25 cm increments of fiddler crab burrows, Wallops Island Salt Marsh, 5/14/2014
Key to Math Skills Practice:
Question
1. Based on the 1m grid in Figure 3, estimate the number of
fiddler crab burrows per square meter( assume an average of 2
borrows per each 25 cm2 increments).
2. Assuming these burrows are cylindrical tubes. Calculate the
minimum amount of rain water one burrow holds in cm3.
Answer
1) 32
2)
*(1.3/2)2*30.5=40.48
cm3
3. Calculate the maximum amount of rain water one burrow holds,
in cm3.
3)
*(1.3/2)2*92=122.13
cm3
4. Based on your answers to questions 1 and 2, calculate the
minimum amount of rain water these burrows allow to sip into
peat per square meter.
5. Based on your answers to questions 1 and 3, calculate the
maximum amount of rain water these burrows allow to sip into
peat per square meter.
6. Approximate number of crabs in 1 square meter? ( assume
only one crab lives in every, borrow)
7. How much food material, in grams, will a colony of crabs
(similar to ours in figure 3) occupying 100 square meters
consume in a 6 hour period?
8. How much of the fungi, in grams, does the colony consume in
the 6 hour period? (assuming food material consists of: 25%
fungi, 33% diatoms, 20% vascular plants; and almost 22%
unknown materials).
4)
32*40.48=1295.36cm3
5)
32*122.13=3908.16cm3
6)32
7) 32*100*0.4=1280g
8) 1280*0.25=320g
9. How much of the diatoms, in grams, does the colony consume in
the 6 hour period?
9) 1280*0.33=422g
10. Based on the data in the Figure 1, how many fiddler crabs were
caught?
10) 21
11. What percentage of the caught crabs were males?
11) 14/21 o.67 or
67%
12. What percentage of the caught crabs were females?
12) 7/210.33 or 33%
13. What is the average length of a male fiddler crab large claw?
13) 2.14 cm
14. What is the average width of a female crab?
14) 1.16 cm
15. What is the average width of a male crab?
15) 1.64 cm
16. What is the average height of a female crab?
16) 0.77 cm
17. What is the average height of a male crab?
17) 1.06 cm
18. Which gender crab was wider?
18) Males
19. By how much? (in cm )
19) 0.48 cm
20. What is the ratio of left-handed crabs (L) to right-handed ones
(R)?
20) 5/9
21. What is the ratio of male crabs to females?
21) 14/7 or 2/1
22. What percent of crabs with width of 1.2 cm are males?
22) 4/5=0.8 or 80%
Sustainability Series Survey
1. Did you find sustainability projects in Math 1010 useful?
No
12%
YES
NO
Question 1
Yes
88%
2. Do you think those projects should be included in future offering of Math 1010 course?
YES
No
14
%
NO
Question 2
Yes
86
%
3. Did the sustainability projects raise your awareness about sustainability issues in general?
YES
NO
No
5%
Question 3
Yes
95%
4. After doing those projects, do you see yourself taking a more active role in regards to sustainability in
your discipline?
YES
NO
No
19%
Question 4
Yes
81%
Please, feel free to write any comments in regard to the above questions or anything else related
to this subject on the back of this paper.
Some of the comments:
I used to not care that much about the environment but now I am going to be more willing to help with
Sustainability.
I really think it is great that not only you teaching us useful math for our life but you are also teaching us
about surroundings and how we influence it.
I liked it. It was a nice easy way to become educated and aware of environmental problems.
Maybe give more suggestions of how people can volunteer for things around Boone community for
Sustainable development.
This was helpful to me because my freshmen seminar class is climate change. I did not know a whole lot
about climate change, but it was interesting to apply things I have learned in this class to my climate
change class.
I feel like they were easy projects but I don’t think it related to Math as much as it should. I understand
you are a big advocate for sustainability along with campus. I just don’t know if a Math class is the place
to do it. But I did enjoy the project and made me more aware.
I liked the project. It was very informational for me to know. But I did not know how it related to Math.
I already knew about wetlands and Math problems on this project. So it was too easy for me.
These projects raise so much awareness. I had no idea about the garbage patch in the ocean. I think we all
be much more mindful of our actions after hearing everyone’s projects. This project is great. It allows to
learn about these issues while doing math.