The Monarchs of Scotland in Numbers

This is an activity about numbers. Learning a language is also about learning how to use numbers in everyday conversation or at work.


Task 1
What is an inference?
What can you infer from the cards in the image below?


Task 2
Facts that you can infer from these cars are:

  • The names of these Monarchs.
  • The dates between which they reigned (ruled).
  • Other?


Task 3
Can you see that the dates of each Monarch follow in sequence?
How many female monarchs were there?

Task 4
You can infer that there are 12 male monarchs out of 12. So 100% male and 0% female or a 12 -0 ratio.

Is this the real picture? You will make the same deductions in Task 1-4 using the cards provided below in separate groups.


Task 5
Compare and contrast your findings
Names, Dates and Percentage / ratio of Males and Females.

Task 6
Why are your answers different?
What is wrong with the samples presented?

Task 7
What is a Random Sample?
How do we create a random sample using the cards above?
How can we ensure that we have consistent results?

Task 8
Read more at Capture Recapture.