Below, you will find a table of all the current Data Nuggets available. Click on the Title to open a page displaying the Data Nugget, teacher guide, student activities, grading rubric, and associated resources. The table can be sorted using the arrows located next to each column header. It can also be searched by keyword using the search bar, located to the top right of the table.
To help introduce these science and math concepts to your students, check out this set of resources.
| Title | Content Level | Science Concepts / Keywords | Quantitative Concepts / Statistics | Graph Type(s) | Variable Type(s) | Data Type(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dangerously bold | 1 | animals, animal behavior, tradeoff, fish, predation, biological significance | percent, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Coral bleaching and climate change | 1 | climate change, coral reef, marine, mutualism, temperature, animals, algae, adaptation, evolution | ratio | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Won’t you be my urchin? | 1 | coral reef, herbivory, marine, sea urchin, water, animals, competition, food web | mean, models | bar | categorical | raw |
| Springing forward | 1 & 3 | climate change, phenology, plants, temperature | mean, standard error (SE), Julian date | bar | categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Do insects prefer local or foreign foods? | 2 | herbivory, invasive species, plants, insects, enemy release, ecology | mean, variance, standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE), confidence intervals (CI) | bar | categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Do invasive species escape their enemies? | 2 | herbivory, invasive species, plants, insects, enemy release, ecology | mean, percent | bar | categorical | summarized |
| All washed up? The effect of floods on cutthroat trout | 2 | animals, disturbance, ecology, fish, water, stream, floods, alternative hypotheses | regression, ratio, rate, graph choice, extra variables | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Float down the Kalamazoo River | 2 | river, water, suspended solids, dam, reservoir | mean, ratio, rate, standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE), Julian date, unnecessary variables | bar, line | categorical, continuous | summarized |
| Finding a foothold | 2 | animals, ecology, marine, substrate, water | frequency, proportion | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Is chocolate for the birds? | 2 | experimental design, agriculture, animals, birds, biodiversity, rainforest, succession, disturbance | addition, unnecessary variables | bar | categorical | raw, full dataset available |
| Fish fights | 2 | animal behavior, animals, fish, mating | average, proportion, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Marvelous mud | 2 | ecology, environmental, fertilization, mud, phosphorus, substrate, water, wetland | percent, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Which guy should she choose? | 2 | animal behavior, animals, fish, mating | frequency, regression, correlation vs. causation | scatter | continuous | raw, summarized |
| Sexy smells | 2 | adaptation, animal behavior, animals, birds, mating | percent, regression, correlation vs. causation | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Shooting the poop | 2 | adaptation, animal behavior, animals, insects, predation, alternative hypotheses | mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | raw |
| Invasive reeds in the salt marsh | 2 | disturbance, invasive species, plants, wetland | mean, percent | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| A tail of two scorpions | 2 | animal behavior, animals, predation | addition, proportion, ratio | bar, stacked bar, pie chart | categorical | raw |
| Green crabs: invaders in the Great Marsh | 2 | animals, invasive species, substrate, wetland, erosion | addition, range | map | categorical, spatial | raw, summarized |
| The birds of Hubbard Brook, Part I | 2 | animals, biodiversity, birds, climate change, succession, disturbance, ecology | count | line, scatter | continuous | raw, full dataset available |
| Beetle battles | 2 | adaptation, animals, behavior, competition, evolution, insects, mating | standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| How do brain chemicals influence who wins a fight? | 2 | animals, behavior, competition, insects, aggression, brain chemistry, physiology | mean | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Deadly windows | 2 | animals, animal behavior, birds, environmental, urban | addition, proportion | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Which would a woodlouse prefer? | 2 | experimental design, animals, behavior, ecology, predation | count, Chi-square test | bar | categorical | raw |
| Tree-killing beetles | 2 | animals, biodiversity, disturbance, ecology, environmental, insects, plants | average, percent, proportion, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Alien life on Mars – caught in crystals? | 2 | astrobiology, salt, solution, Mars, extraterrestrial life, chemistry | average, time series | line | continuous | summarized, visual, full dataset available |
| Beetle, it’s cold outside! | 2 | animals, climate change, ectotherm, insects, temperature | mean, standard error (SE), models | line | continuous | summarized |
| Can a salt marsh recover after restoration? | 2 | disturbance, salinity, transect, invasive species, plants, wetland, restoration | mean, percent, frequency | bar, line | continuous | summarized |
| Fast weeds in farmer’s fields | 2 | evolution, adaptation, agriculture, plants, fitness, heredity, genetics | frequency, percent, mean, replication | bar, scatter | continuous, categorical | summarized |
| The carbon stored in mangrove soils | 2 | carbon, climate change, disturbance, ecology, environmental, nutrients, greenhouse gasses, plants, transect | proportion, mean, unnecessary variables | bar | continuous, categorical | summarized |
| Where to find the hungry, hungry herbivores | 2 | herbivory, plants, insects, ecology, latitude, longitude | regression, standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE) | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Are plants more toxic in the tropics? | 3 | herbivory, diversity, plants, insects, ecology, adaptation, chemistry | standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE), index, formula | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Does a partner in crime make it easier to invade? | 3 | evolution, legume, plants, mutualism, rhizobia, invasive species | mean | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Fair traders or freeloaders? | 3 | evolution, legume, plants, mutualism, rhizobia, nitrogen, fertilization | standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Fertilizing biofuels may cause release of greenhouse gasses | 3 | agriculture, biofuels, climate change, fertilization, greenhouse gases, nitrogen, plants | regression | scatter | continuous | summarized, full dataset available |
| The ground has gas! | 3 | climate change, temperature, greenouse gases, nitrogen, plants | regression | scatter | continuous | raw, summarized, full dataset available |
| Growing energy: comparing biofuel crop biomass | 3 | agriculture, biofuels, climate change, fertilization, plants | mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| How the cricket lost its song, Part I | 3 | adaptation, animal behavior, animals, evolution, mating, parasitism | percent | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| The mystery of Plum Island Marsh | 3 | fertilization, fish, food web, marine, mollusk, water, wetland | mean | bar | categorical | raw |
| Invasion meltdown | 3 | climate change, ecology, invasive species, plants, temperature | mean, range, replication | bar | categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Is your salt marsh in the zone? | 3 | climate change, ecology, plants, sea level rise, substrate, wetland | mean | bar | categorical | raw |
| Lizards, iguanas, and snakes! Oh my! | 3 | animals, biodiversity, disturbance, restoration, urban | count, addition | bar | categorical | raw |
| What do trees know about rain? | 3 | climate change, dendrochronology, ecology, plants, precipitation, temperature, water | mean, formula, equation, addition, multiplication | line | continuous | raw, full dataset available |
| CSI: Crime Solving Insects | 3 | animals, insects, parasitism | weighted mean | bar | categorical | raw |
| Does sea level rise harm saltmarsh sparrows? | 3 | animals, birds, sea level rise, climate change, disturbance, ecology, wetland | mean, standard deviation (SD) | line | continuous | summarized |
| Keeping up with the sea level | 3 | climate change, disturbance, ecology, sea level rise, plants, substrate, wetland | formula, equation, rate | line, scatter | continuous, categorical | raw |
| The birds of Hubbard Brook, Part II | 3 | animals, biodiversity, birds, climate change, succession, disturbance, ecology | count | line, scatter | continuous, categorical | raw, full dataset available |
| How the cricket lost its song, Part II | 3 | adaptation, animal behavior, animals, ecolution, mating, parasitism | mean | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Feral chickens fly the coop | 3 | adaptation, animals, behavior, birds, ecology, evolution, invasive species, mating, heredity, genetics | proportion, percent | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Raising Nemo: Parental care in the clown anemonefish | 3 | animals, behavior, coral reef, ecology, fish, marine, mating, tradeoff, plasticity | mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | raw |
| When a species can’t stand the heat | 3 | animals, climate change, disturbance, ecology, environmental, mating, temperature | addition, percent, ratio, regression | scatter | continuous | raw, full dataset available |
| Are you my species? | 3 | adaptation, animals, behavior, biodiversity, competition, evolution, fish, mating | formula, equation, addition, subtraction, division, regression | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Marsh makeover | 3 | bodiversity, disturbance, ecology, greenhouse gases, mud, plants, restoration, wetland | standard error (SE) | bar, line | categorical | raw, summarized |
| To bee or not to bee aggressive | 3 | animals, behavior, genes, insects, tradeoff, plasticity | mean, effect size, percent change, range | bar | categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Why are butterfly wings colorful? | 3 | adaptation, animals, insects, models, predation | fraction, proportion, probability | bar | categorical | summarized |
| City parks: wildlife islands in a sea of cement | 3 | animals, biodiversity, ecology, urban, island biogeography, parks, camera trap | Shannon Wiener Index, formula, equation, sum, proportion, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized, full dataset available |
| Is it better to be bigger? | 3 | adaptation, animals, evolution, predation, natural selection | mean, percent, rate, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Is it dangerous to be a showoff? | 3 | adaptation, animals, evolution, predation, tradeoff, natural selection | percent, rate, regression | scatter | continuous, categorical | summarized |
| What big teeth you have! Sexual selection in rhesus macaques | 3 | adaptation, animals, evolution, sexual selection, sexual dimorphism | mean, standard deviation (SD) | bar | continuous, categorical | raw |
| Bringing back the Trumpeter Swan | 3 | animals, biodiversity, birds, ecology, environmental, restoration | mean | line | continuous, categorical | raw, full dataset available |
| Are forests helping in the fight against climate change? | 3 | climate change, carbon, ecology, greenhouse gasses, photosynthesis, plants, decomposition, respiration | regression | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Can biochar improve crop yields? | 3 | agriculture, environmental, fertilization, plants, soil, water, replication, randomization | percent, mean, standard deviation (SD), yield | bar | continuous, categorical | summarized |
| Hold on for your life! Part I | 3 | adaptation, animals, disturbance, evolution, natural selection, genetic drift, hurricane, biological significance, alternative hypotheses | argumentation, mean, standard error (SE) | bar | continuous, categorical | summarized |
| Hold on for your life! Part II | 3 | adaptation, animals, disturbance, evolution, natural selection, genetic drift, hurricane | argumentation | visual | raw | |
| Testing the tolerance of invasive plants | 3 | ecology, herbivory, invasive species, plants, tolerance | statistical interaction, mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Picky eaters: Dissecting poo to examine moose diets | 3 | animal behavior, animals, ecology, foraging, herbivory, parks, predator-prey | 1:1 line, proportion, average, unnecessary variables | scatter | continuous, categorical | summarized, full dataset available |
| Candid camera: capturing the secret lives of carnivores | 3 | animals, biodiversity, carnivores, ecology, island biogeography, richness, camera trap, parks | regression | map, scatter | continuous | summarized |
| Crunchy or squishy? How El Niño events change zooplankton | 3 | algae, animals, marine, El Niño | outlier, correlation vs. causation, unnecessary variables | line, scatter | continuous | raw |
| Streams as sensors: Arctic watersheds as indicators of change | 3 | climate change, ecology, environmental, carbon, nitrogen, permafrost | unnecessary variables, regression | scatter | continuous | summarized |
| The end of winter as we’ve known it? | 3 | climate change, ice cover | Julian date, mean, regression, messiness, variability | scatter | continuous | summarized, full dataset available |
| Working to reduce the plastics problem | 3 | plastics, synthetic materials, chemistry, biodegradable, elastomer, polymer, monomer, stress, strain | percent, ratio | line | continuous | summarized |
| Limit by limit: Nutrients control algal growth in Arctic streams | 3 | nitrogen, nutrients, phosphorus, nutrient limitation, law of the minimum | response ratio, graph choice, standard deviation (SD) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Cheaters in nature – when is a mutualism not a mutualism? | 4 | evolution, legume, plants, mutualism, parasitism, rhizobia, nitrogen, fertilization | mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Dangerous aquatic prey: can predators adapt to toxic algae? | 4 | adaptation, algae, evolution, marine, predation | mean | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Salmon in hot water | 4 | adaptation, animals, climate change, evolution, fish, genes, genome, temperature, DNA, heredity, genetics | mean | line | continuous | summarized |
| Urbanization and estuary eutrophication | 4 | algae, eutrophication, fertilization, marine, nitrogen, phosphorus, wetland, urban, photosynthesis, respiration | mean, standard error (SE), subtraction, model | bar | categorical | raw |
| How to escape a predator | 4 | adaptation, animal behavior, animals, predation, physiology | mean, standard error (SE) | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| The flight of the stalk-eyed fly | 4 | physics, moment of intertia, adaptation, animals, flight, physiology | mean, standard error (SE), formula, equation, multiplication | continuous | summarized | |
| Make way for mummichogs | 4 | animals, biodiversity, disturbance, fish, restoration, wetland | mean | bar, line | continuous | raw, summarized |
| The Arctic is melting – so what? | 4 | climate change, marine, temperature, water, weather | percent, models | diagram | categorical, modeled data | summarized |
| Gene expression in stem cells | 4 | gene expression, genes, stem cells, DNA, genetics | mean | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Bon Appétit! Why do male crickets feed females during courtship? | 4 | adaptation, animals, behavior, competition, insects, mating | proportion, regression | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Winter is coming! Can you handle the freeze? | 4 | ecology, evolution, genes, plants, local adaptation | percent, standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE) | bar, line | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Finding Mr. Right | 4 | animals, animal behavior, biodiversity, birds, evolution, genes, mating, local adaptation | mean | bar | categorical | raw |
| Why so blue? The determinants of color pattern in killifish, Part I | 4 | adaptation, animals, biodiversity, evolution, fish, genes, mating, heredity, genetics | mean, standard deviation (SD), standarad error (SE) | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Why so blue? The determinants of color pattern in killifish, Part II | 4 | adaptation, animals, biodiversity, evolution, fish, genes, mating, heredity, genetics | mean, standard deviation (SD), standarad error (SE) | bar | categorical | raw, summarized |
| Sticky situations: big and small animals with sticky feet | 4 | adaptation, animals, biomimicry, chemistry, physics, scale | mean, ratio, multiplication, formula, equation, surface area, mass, volume | scatter - logarithmic axes | continuous | summarized |
| When whale I sea you again? | 4 | climate change, marine, temperature, water, whales, DNA, PCR | fraction, percent | line, stacked bar | continuous, categorical | raw |
| The case of the collapsing soil | 4 | climate change, carbon, ecology, plants, phosphorus, sea level rise, respiration, substrate, wetland | regression, concentration | scatter | continuous | raw |
| Clique wars: social conflict in daffodil cichlids | 4 | animal behavior, animals, competition, fish | count, standard deviation (SD), standarad error (SE) | bar | categorical | summarized |
| Fishy origins | 4 | citizen science, DNA, evolution, fish, PCR, marine, microsatellites | percent, proportion, addition, division | bar, stacked bar | continuous, categorical | raw |
