Modeling a Real Life Situation

• By modeling a capture-recapture situation, the students are able to see how proportions are useful.
  
• They become involved with data collection by capturing samples to find the proportion of tagged fish to the total sample.
  
• Then they find the mean of the tagged fish and the total from the 10 samples.

Solving the Proportion

• A ratio is used to determine the proportion of tagged to total fish from the samples. This ratio should be similar to the proportion in the total population.
  
• The following equation is used to solve the proportion and predict how many fish there are in the lake:
  
  

  Average # tagged in samples	=	Total # tagged in lake
  Average # in samples		Total # fish in lake

  
  
• Then the students count the true total of fish in the lake and compare that number with their predictions.