Name ______________________________________ Date _________
Animals in Motion
Animals in Motion
Activity 1. Measure Your Speed
Knowing your speed is important for lots of things. It also is important for animals. Use a tape measure to make a 10-mlong running course. Then, use a stopwatch to see how fast you run the course. Record your time below.
My time in a 10-m dash: _____ seconds
Now it is time to calculate your speed. Use the steps below to help you figure out your running speed in kilometers per
hour (km/h).
10 m ÷ _____ (time from above) = _____ meters/second
_____ meters/second  60 seconds/minute = _____ meters/minute
_____ meters/minute  60 minutes/hour = _____ meters/hour
_____ meters/hour ÷ 1000 meters/kilometer = _____ kilometers/hour
Use the table below to make a graph of your speed relative to other animals.
Table 1. Animal Speed Comparison.
Animal
Me
Speed (km/h)
Olympic sprinter
44
Chicken
14
Sloth
Kangaroo
0.25
48
Now, measure out a 100-meter distance. Then, use a stopwatch to see how fast you run the course. Record your time
below.
My time in a 100-m dash: _____ seconds
Now it is time to calculate your speed. Use the steps below to help you figure out your running speed in kilometers per
hour (km/h).
100 m ÷ _____ (time from above) = _____ meters/second
_____ meters/second  60 seconds/minute = _____ meters/minute
_____ meters/minute  60 minutes/hour = _____ meters/hour
_____ meters/hour ÷ 1000 meters/kilometer = _____ kilometers/hour
Name ______________________________________ Date _________
Animals in Motion
1. Compare your average speed for 10 meters to your average speed for 100 meters. Which number is closest to your
maximum speed? Explain your answer.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
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2. Use your average speed for the 10-m run to make a graph of the total distance you could have run in one hour, two
hours, three hours, and four hours if you maintained the same speed.
3. Use your average speed for the 100-m run to make a graph of the total distance you could have run in one hour, two
hours, three hours, and four hours if you maintained the same speed.
Name ______________________________________ Date _________
Animals in Motion
4. How far do you think you can travel in four hours of running? Is it the same distance you calculated for one of the
graphs above? Why or why not?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
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Activity 2. Speed of Tiger Sharks
Below is a table with the distances between the start and end point of tracks of tiger sharks in Australia. Use the data in
the table to calculate the swimming speed of each tiger shark.
Table 2. Tracking Times and Total Distances Between Start and End Point of Tiger Shark Tracks.
Tiger shark
number
1
Total track
duration (hr)
10
Distance moved
(km)
5
2
3
3
3
2
4
4
5
2.5
5
20
20
Average speed
-
-
Speed (km/h)
1. What was the average swimming speed of the tiger sharks?
__________________________________________________________
2. Do you think this is how fast tiger sharks usually swim? Explain your answer.
__________________________________________________________
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3. Use the speed above to calculate how far a tiger shark might swim in:
(a) One day (hint: multiply the speed by 24)
__________
(b) One week (hint: multiply the answer in Part a by 7)
__________
(c) One month (hint: multiply the answer in Part b by 4)
__________
(d) One year (hint: multiply the answer in Part c by 12)
__________
4. How could you get a better measure of the speed tiger sharks typically swim?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Name ______________________________________ Date _________
Activity 3. Getting Closer to Swimming Speed
Animals in Motion
Katy and Dr. Mike recorded the location of the sharks every five minutes during the tracks. Use the data in the table
below to calculate the sharks’ speeds.
Table 3. Distances and Swimming Speeds of Tiger Sharks During the First Six Hours of Tracking.
Tiger shark
number
1
Total track
duration (h)
10
Distance
moved (km)
15
2
3
6
3
2
9
4
5
20
5
20
70
Average speed
-
-
Speed (km/h)
1. Compare the swimming speeds you calculated using this method to the speeds you calculated in activity 2. Which
method provides better information on the actual speeds that sharks swim? Why?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
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2. When you measure the distance between the start and end points of a path, you are measuring a quantity called
displacement. Can you think of a question where you might want to use the displacement?
__________________________________________________________
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3. Tiger sharks have to swim constantly to breathe—they never stop to rest on the bottom! Use the average speed you
calculated in Table 3 to calculate how far a tiger shark might swim in:
(a) One day
__________
(b) One week __________
(c) One month __________
(d) One year
__________