Quantitative Methods Project: Promoting the use of quantitative methods in ethnobiology
Produce Shoppers. During your interviews with men, you often heard a statement like, "I don't like to grocery shop with my wife because she takes too long." In your discussions, the men who didn't like to shop with their wife added focus to this general observation by noting that women are more picky about what produce they choose in the market as compared to men. With the cooperation of a local produce dealer, you are allowed to watch shoppers and measure the time that each took in selecting several types of produce. Your notes include the gender of the shopper. Is there any difference it the time that men and women take in choosing an item of the same kind of produce?
Preferred Size. Women who were interviewed regarding the shopping habits of their husbands sometimes complained that the men were bad shoppers. As an example, they said that men didn't know the correct size of produce to buy. Sometime they would choose items that were too large, and other times items that were too small. The question is whether there is a “sweet spot” in terms of the size of each kind of produce that is purchased. The women seemed to think that there is such a "sweet spot." This was tested by choosing an type of produce that is available in a wide variety in sizes. The sizes were divided into size categories so that they can be determined by observing from a distance. Shoppers are then observed and the number of selections in each size category is tabulated. Both men and women were observed. Did the men by a wider range of sizes than the women?
Adult Wisdom. "Kids these days just don't like vegetables," reported one of your seniors in an interview. "Just look at their shopping carts. They have hardly any produce." Indeed, a cursory observation of shopping carts suggests that older people buy a wider variety of produce than young people. Data are collected by watching each customer at the super market check-out counter and tabulating the number of different items of produce. At the same time, the general age (i.e., younger vs older) of each customer is noted. Was your senior citizen correct?
Processing Preferences. You are doing interviews in "tomato country." These are prime agricultural lands for tomatoes and lots of varieties are grown here. The people you interview can tell you about many varieties and the best uses for each one. They tell you about some that are used in sauces, other varieties are best when canned, and some should only be eaten when fresh. You compile a list of the named varieties and the uses and ask people to match the varieties to the uses. You have three groups of people do this survey: (1) long-time residents who are not farmers, (2) commercial farmers, and (3) tomato processors. Do all three groups agree?
Lasting Freshness. There are several varieties of a fruit that are available to the produce manager in the market where you work. This is not a particularly popular fruit, but the manager feels that he needs to keep some on the shelf to satisfy a few good customers. He would like to keep just one variety and it should be the one that lasts longest in storage. You help out by keeping a good-sized stock of each of the candidate varieties in the back room. Each day you note the number of fruits in each variety that need to be thrown out because they are "past their prime." Based on these results, you should be able to say not only which variety lasts the longest but also how long it will take for each variety to reach the point where half of them will have been discarded.
Bug Damage: A television show is promoting a non-chemical way to reduce damage from leaf-eating insects. The show's host say that an ancient technique is to add some "insect enemy" plants to the garden and there will be less damage. You find out what was meant by "insect enemy" plants and mention this method of plant protection to several people you are interviewing. They inform you that this is a "myth." You'd like to know, so you conduct an experiment in two gardens, one with the "insect enemy" plants and the other without. You are growing a single crop plant in each garden. You randomly sample leaves from the two gardens and estimate the percent insect damage on each leaf. Did the "insect enemy" plants help?
Sweet Fruit. You have been discussing the problem of when to harvest the fruit you are studying. Most of the people you ask tell you it is simply when the fruit change color. One person, however, insists that the longer you leave the fruit on the tree after the color change, the higher the sugar content. This is a risky proposition as the weather later in the season could ruin a crop if it is left on the tree too long. However, sweeter fruit should increase their value. You are able to measure the sugar content of the fruit with a simple refractometer. You randomly choose 10 of your trees and then randomly mark a sample that will be harvested by color and another that will stay on the tree for an additional two weeks. Did you find a significant increase in sugar concentration?
New-Age Ag. Programs on television and stories in the newspapers are all promoting the development of local agriculture. The people you interview have often mentioned this as something "whose time has come." You notice that most of the small communities in a nearby region have become quite competitive with each other over who can produce the largest quantity of "locally grown" produce. Each community has designated an area in which new farmers can grow produce that will be sold in newly established open markets. It is obvious that the communities with a larger population have to devote more land to this activity than do small communities. You are able to glean the sizes of the community farms from the press reports. You can determine the community sizes from Internet resources. Predict the area needed by a community with a population of 20,000 if it is to have an average size "local grown" farm.
Exclusive Parks. You have been interviewing people about the importance of parks. Everyone expresses that they like parks. However, quite a few people have complained that "it is the wealthy people who get the parks. Folks like us have hardly any parks." According to the people you have interviewed, parks are a feature of wealthy neighborhoods. You don't know if this is true or not. You examine this by dividing the city into two zones, one zone is where your interviewed subjects have indicated that the rich people tend to live and the other zone is for the less affluent. You find all the parks on an satellite image and measure the area of each one. You assign each park to the rich/poor zones and test if there is any evidence of bias. Note that you may want to compensate for the relative sizes of the two zones.
Unlucky Numbers. You have learned from your readings that some cultures avoid specific numbers because it is felt that they are unlucky or otherwise bad. This has been confirmed by a local informant, but only in the most general context. "People are very careful about number," he had said. You decide to test this by purchasing flowers at local markets. At each flower stall, you explain to the vendor that your purchase is very important and that you want it to provide a positive impression on the person who will receive the flowers. You randomly specify the number of flower stems in an arrangement so that you get a good sampling of flower vendor reactions, making sure that you've structured your comments to encourage an expression of the appropriateness of your choice by the flower vendor. Do the vendors ever discourage the purchase of an "unlucky" number of flower stems?
Avoided Numbers. "There are a lot of supersticious people in this community," says one of your informants. When pressed for an example, she talks about unlucky numbers. In particular, she identifies the number thirteen as unlucky. You wonder if people can be seen to put such an aversion to practice. You choose a produce product that is generally bought in enough quantity that some people would select more than thirteen items. You monitor the area with this produce and tabulate the number of items selected by each person. You analyze the data to see if you can detect that a fewer-than expected number of people buy thirteen items.
Produce Marketing. "Out here in the countryside, people buy their fruits and vegetables by count, not weight. I think it is different in the city." This observation that there is a difference in practice on how produce is sold hinted at a fundamental difference in marketing strategies. Could this difference be true? You compile a list of all the produce in the rural market and evaluate whether each item is sold by quantity or weight. You repeat this evaluation in a bunch of rural and urban markets. Was your informant's observation correct?
Orchard Diversity. You have been conducting interviews with apple farmers who live in a very long, narrow valley. As you travel from farm to farm, you notice that there appear to be mostly large apple orchards at one end of the valley. The orchards at the other end of the valley seem to be smaller and more numerous. You ask some of the farmers about this and they are not so sure you are correct. One of them points out that the orchards may seem different from the highway, but this is simply due to the differences in shape of the fields from one end of the valley to the other. You make some measurements from satellite images. What do you discover?
Spice Value. "We are very careful about how we display our spices," says one of the women that you interview at the market. In this market the vendors display their spices by arranging them in neat, cone shaped piles. You can estimate the height and diameter of the pile with a little practice. With these two dimensions you can calculate the volume of the pile. As a compensation to each vendor for letting you make these measurements, you purchase a sample from each measured pile. You keep a record of the price and weigh the purchase. All these data allow you to estimate the total value of the pile. What can you learn from this exercise?
Daily Revenue. You have been having some discussions with government officials about how much income is produced by the morning market. The government doesn't think that this is a viable economic activity -- that it would be better to have a broker take the vegetable to the city market. You learn to do a quick survey of the market to estimate the volume of each produce item. You do a survey at the start and end of the market. You also record the general sales price of each type of produce. Since the market is stocked only once each day before sales start, you are able to estimate the daily revenue from the sales. After two weeks of making these observations, what can you tell the government official?
Size Constancy. It has become clear both from your discussions with the people in the region, as well as eating many meals with them, that squash are an important item in the local diet. Squash come in many sizes in this area. Most people who buy squash need quite a bit. They can get the needed volume by purchasing one or two large squash, by buying many smaller ones, or by some mixture of large and small ones. Do people who buy squash tend to choose individual items all of which are large, all small, or a mixture?
Mushroom Pickers. There is a large forest that borders the city. Quite a few people harvest a local specialty mushroom from this forest. "We love these mushrooms, but I'm not sure that it is worth the effort to collect them," your informant tells you. She goes on to tell you that in order for an individual's effort to be practical, the person must spend a whole day collecting in the forest. You are aware that the amount of mushrooms collected is recorded in a sales log at the local wholesale market. What can you tell by looking at the market log?
Professional Decor. "My doctor really likes her patients," says your informant. "You should see her waiting room. It has the nicest plants." You wonder if this is a unique situation or a characteristic of the medical specialty. You classify indoor plants into three sizes. Doctor office waiting rooms of different medical specialties were surveyed and the number of each plant size tabulated. Are there differences in the size of the plants displayed in doctor office waiting rooms?
City Treescapes. The frequency of street trees was determined by recording whether or not an obviously city-planted tree species occurred in every 20 second interval while traveling along the highway at a constant speed. Sections of major highways were sampled in this way in a town that was established many years ago and, in a similar way, in a nearby relatively new city (established in the last decade or so). Are the two towns expressing a similar desire for tree-lined streets?
Kid Vegetables. "I can't wait for my kid to get older so he will eat vegetables," reported the frustrated informant. "He is so much pickier than all the other kids his age." Your curiosity causes you to wonder if this individual is unusual or is acting like other kids his age. You enlist the help of a random selection of parents with a child that is the same age as your informant's son. You ask the parents to keep a log of the vegetables their child ate each day. This is an anonymous survey that does include supplemental information about the gender of the child and whether this is the oldest child in the family. Are there any patterns to the data that would help satisfy your curiosity?
School Lunch. The school lunch program is being discussed with the parents of students who will be attending a new experimental school. The main feature of this school is its ethnic diversity. The students eat lunch together as one way that they may learn about other cultures. The school personnel want to feature as many culturally-appropriate foods as they can, both to please the students and as a way to stimulate discussion. The parents were asked what their child would eat by choosing from a list of all the vegetables available to the food service staff. Demographic data were also collected on the forms. The first analysis is concerned with whether there are any distinct ethnic patterns.
Storage Decay. Your informants have described how they store fruit for use during the months between harvests. By keeping the fruit cool, some of the fruit last for a full nine months. However, they do expect some spoilage so for this storage plan to work, they begin with more fruit than they will use. You want to see if you can replicate their success. During the fall harvest, you are faced with the need to predict how many fruit you will need to store in order to have some last through the rest of the year. You have been able to figure out from your discussions with your informants that about half the stored fruit spoil every month and that this pattern of half being lost each month is consistent through the year. You want to have 10 fruit at the end of nine months. How many fruit must you place in storage from the annual harvest?
Big Fruit. You have been asking people about the production of fruit on neighborhood trees. They report that the usual practice is to allow the fruit to mature while still on the tree. One of the people you have interviewed has harvested her own fruit trees for many years. She has suggested that, "if you remove half the fruit while they are immature, the weight of the remaining fruit will be considerably larger." She explains that this, in turn, makes these fruit, "more desirable, easier to sell, and they fetch a higher price." Since you have an ample supply of trees to study, you carry out this experiment the following season. Was your local expert right about fruit sizes?
Water Conservation. People in the neighborhood water their backyard gardens with a hose every day during the growing season. It doesn't take long to water the plants each day. As part of your survey about water conservation, you find that virtually all the people you ask say that the amount of water that they use is not significant. However, you are prety sure that people are really accounting for the length of the growing season. To test this, you enlist the help of some of your neighbors. Each person in the study has a plot of corn that is separate from the rest of the garden plants. You measure the size of each corn plot. You then use a bucket to determine the rate of flow each person uses when watering with a hose. Finally, you ask each person to keep a log of how many minutes they spend watering their corn each day. At the end of the season you collect the water-use logs. What can you learn from these data?
Bad Years. Your study area is located in a part of the country that is relatively arid. In some years, there is very little rain to supply the non-irrigated farm lands. As a result, locally-grown cereal crop is said to "fail" in years with such a drought. You have been able to obtain a long-term, detailed temperature and rainfall record for a nearby area. You go into the farming community and ask people to recollect years with past crop failures. Based on what you hear from the people and extract from the data, what conditions might define a “drought” for this area?
School Lunch. You are fortunate to be able to attend a special summer school that brings together students from all over the city. A feature of this school are the daily field trips to interesting places. As a result, each of the students bring a lunch that they have prepared at home. You notice one day that many of the students have the same kind of fruit. This is a local favorite and it has just started to be sold in stores across the city. As you talk about this with other students, you realize that the price paid for this fruit varies, presumably due to the section of the city in which it was purchased. You wonder if there is any pattern to this variability and ask as many students as you can to find out the price of the fruit and the location of the store.
Conservation Culture. The reports in the media continue to stress that the city is in the grips of a long-term drought. The rainfall has been below average for several years and, with the continuing growth of the city, the water-supply system is unable to meet the demand. The need for water conservation has been become so acute that homeowners are urged to cut back watering their lawns and gardens. There have even been suggestions that changing to xeroscape landscaping is an environmentally responsible action. You are curious about how this condition is viewed throughout the city and hypothesize that perceptions and actions are different for people on the ends of the socio-economic scale. You devise a simple data collection scheme that consists of three questions: (1) Do you consider yourself to be "environmentally responsible"? (scale: 1-10); (2) Have you changed your yard maintenance regarding watering in response to the drought conditions? (scale 1-10); (3) With which socio-economic group do you identify yourself? (scale: poor, lower-middle class, middle class, upper-middle class, upper class). What can you conclude from your analysis of these data?
Fast Growing. You remember reading a research report from an experimental farm has shown that under optimal conditions, head cabbage can be grown at the rate of one pound of cabbage per acre per minute. You mention this during an interview since cabbages are a commonly grown crop in backyard gardens. You tell your informant, "I wonder if anyone here even approaches this optimal growth rate." You get the "can't be done" look and you move on in your interview. Later on, you think about this question again because it would be interesting to know about the relative productivity of backyard gardens compared to high-intensity farms. Since the cabbage growing season hasn't started yet, you have a chance to get an answer. Of course, nobody is growing an acre of cabbages, so you measure the area of each cabbage plot as it is established by the backyard gardener and ask each grower to record the harvest date and cabbage weight. You determine the start of the growing season by following the procedure described in the research paper. Were these farmers very productive?
Retirement Gardens. Each year you visit elderly relatives who live in a well-established retirement community. Each resident is allocated land and water so that they can grow vegetables and flowers. You tell your relatives that these gardens appear to be well-tended and that the owners have considerable pride in their gardening skills. This sets off a discussion between your relatives. They note that each garden plot has a distinct "owner" who does all the work. Some plots are managed by men and other plots by women. One of your relatives declares, "the women are the good gardeners. You can tell because they have much more variety in their gardens." End of discussion. You wonder whether there actually is any difference in the number of different types of plants that relates to the gender of the "owner." You survey the gardens by tallying the variety of plants and whether the gardener is male or female.
Mature Trees. A group of farmers has decided to try growing a new crop. The trees will yield a valuable commodity, but only after they are mature. They ask you how long they will have to wait until the trees are mature. You can't find any growth data, so you decide to do an experiment. You attach metal bands around the trees at about the breast height level. There is a spring on each band that pulls the ends of the band so that it fits tightly around the tree but still allows expansion of the tree trunk. There are markings on the band so that you can record the circumference of the band. You measure the bands on the trees periodically through the year. You do know the size (i.e., circumference) of this species when it is likely to be mature. Predict when the trees will reach maturity.
Forest Conversion. Representatives have from a company to promote the conversion of the forest into a monoculture plantation. The company describes the plantation process, including the number of years that it will take the trees to mature, the expected annual yield, and the number of years that production should last. After this period of productivity, the managed forest will need to be replanted. The average annual income from a productive forest is also provided. You know, from your interviews with the villagers, that they are already getting money from their sale of NTFP. Over the long run, which plan (plantation or NTFP) is the better option in terms of income to the village?
Farm Competition. There is a new fruit being grown in the region. The fruit are quite variable in size and are sold by weight. The farmers are still learning how to maximize their profit with this new crop. In an interview with one farmer, he said "the smart strategy is to have a lot of trees, even if they are smaller and produce smaller fruit." Another farmer you interviewed was following the opposite strategy: he has fewer trees but they are all generally large. Since the fruit are relatively few and crop is harvested only at the end of the season, you can count and weigh each of the fruit on each farm. What can you say about the two farms?
Gardening Consensus. You interview all the people who come to the community center. Each person is asked which vegetables should be grown in the community center's garden. The result is a long list of vegetables. The list has species that are likely to be grown successfully, as well as some species that are inappropriate for growing in the region. A copy of the list is given to people who have not done gardening and who are waiting for a chance to use the community garden site. Copies are also distributed to long-time gardeners in this community garden. All the participants are asked to mark the list with a five point scale regarding the potential for a successful crop in this community garden site. Do the two groups (potential vs experienced) agree on the potential success of the species?
Picky, Picky. "I rather have men shoppers," notes the produce manager. "They are nearly as picky as the women." You watch people who are selecting individual produce from a large bin in the produce department. Indeed, some people simply grab the number of items they want, while other people pick up each item, examine it, and either return it to the bin or keep it for purchase. You are curious if there is any pattern to this difference in behavior. To insure randomness, you monitor every 5th individual who comes to this vegetable bin. Also, you only include those people who leave with two or more items from the bin. You tabulate whether each individual was a grabber or a picker, along with the person's gender and your estimate of the person's age (as a category). Is the produce manager right?
Quality Determination. You go into a farmer's field and randomly pick some of his crop. You explain to the farmer that you want to better understand how to evaluate quality. You ask him to divide your sample into groups that represent different qualities. You repeat this process with several farmers and pool the results. What have you learned?
Fruit density. When you ask people about how to choose the best fruit, they generally answer that you should select "the heavy ones." You realize that this isn't quite that easy because there is quite a range in fruit sizes. Therefore, you assume that people have some measure of density in mind. However, you're not sure that people can quickly (and without the aid of any measuring apparatus) determine this characteristic. You test your hypothesis of "its all in their heads" by asking a randomly selected group of self-proclaimed experts to choose five fruit that they consider to be the "best" and five that are the "worst." You weigh and measure the size of each chosen fruit and pool the results in the two categories. What did you learn?
Just ripe. A well-loved local fruit has a problem: it is difficult to know when it is ripe and ready for consumption. You do an informal survey and find that there are more than a dozen characteristics that people consider important in determining when the fruit is ripe. You are curious about whether the people who grow the fruit use the same criteria as those who buy the fruit from the market. You compile a list of the characteristics and ask each person to mark whether each is or is not a useful criterion. You also determine whether a respondent is a grower or buyer. Is there any consistency in the use of ripeness criteria?
Elevation choices. You see two varieties of an abundant fruit in the market. You discuss these with the local vendors. You are struck by the differences in the appearance of the two varieties; one variety is solid red while the other is a combination of red and yellow. The vendors tell you that both varieties come from the steep hillside farms along a river that cuts a deep channel through the nearby range of high mountains. They claim that villages specialize in one of the two varieties. Some villages are high up in the mountains and other villages are down near the river. All the vendors seem to agree that the elevation of a village determines which variety is grown. You take a trip to this region and collect data on the crops and elevations for each village. Do your collection data support this hypothesis?
Cautious Planting. After considerable discussion with the local farmers you have discovered that the two varieties of the local staple food differ in several characteristics. One variety is described to be the one that tastes best but is most susceptible to diseases and other problems. The other variety is not as well liked but is much more dependable as a crop. Each farmer usually plants both varieties but in varying amounts. You hypothesize that the ratio of the amounts might be a measure of risk, and if so, the risk might be related to the age of the farmer. Your data collection consists of measurements of the areas planted with the two varieties for each farm and the age of the farmer.
Mountain exodus. "It is a tough life up there in the mountains," an informant tells you. "They'll leave for the lowlands if they can." You decide to test this assertion as it applies to the informant's remote, mountainous country. You reason that if people would rather not live in the higher mountains, the villages should be smaller than the villages down in the lower regions. You exclude the one large city in the country and gather data for the villages from the country gazetteer. Each village is listed along with its location, elevation and population. Are the higher elevation villages smaller?
Price indexing. One of the people in the community has told you to try a particular fruit that is characteristic of the region. He has not only described his fondness for this fruit, but also complained that it has gotten much too expensive. This elderly gentleman told you, "When I was a kid, these were practically free." Inflation, of course, has caused a great increase in food prices. But you are curious about the relative increase in the cost of this fruit. Has it gotten more expensive relative to a staple food? Food prices have been published in newspaper advertisements for a long time. You have access to the historical newspaper archives. You can use the price of the local staple food as the measure of the purchasing power of the average person. What does the relative cost tell you about the cost of this fruit over the years?
Rural stops. You take a vacation that involves a leisurely drive through the surrounding countryside. This is a great change from the urban area where you live. You frequently stop in markets in the countryside to buy snacks and drinks. While browsing in these stores, you note that they seem to have a very different choice in produce than you are used to seeing in the city. You comment about this to one of the store owners and she says "Yes, we not only have fresher produce but many more choices. It is a joy of country living." You wonder if these rural areas actually have more or fewer items available. You randomly select rural markets during the rest of your trip and count the number of green-vegetables and the number of fruit varieties for sale in the produce section of each store. When you return to the city, you randomly choose a set of produce stores and do a similar survey. Is your initial perception and the statement of the store owner supported by the data?
Cuisine fidelity. You would like to be able to cook a particularly characteristic (and popular) national dish. As you examine a few cookbooks, you notice that there is quite a bit of variability in the amount of a small -- but significant -- ingredient. As this ingredient is generally expensive to buy in stores, you wonder if the amount that is suggested in the recipe is related to this cost. You assume that cost is important in the cities but not an important factor in the countryside areas where this ingredient is grown. You survey people in the city and country and ask them how much of this ingredient must be used to make this an authentic version of this popular dish. You make sure to note the number of people who will be served by each recipe.
Gracious dining. The people in your study area are very gracious and generous. Every time you have a meeting with them, they provide you with a feast! They love to discuss the food and don't mind you taking notes about the ingredients of the foods that are offered in each of these meals. At the end of your field studies you tabulate the number of different plants that were in all these meals. You want to know if there is a difference between the diversity in the plants in the meals offered in the countryside versus those in the more urban settings.
Slow food. One of the topics that comes up frequently in discussions with rural residents is the slower pace of life. They take pride in not being in a rush. As part of your daily log, you take notes about every time you are invited to eat with a family in a rural community. In these notes, you record the starting and ending times of the meal. In the urban core, you have met with a group that promotes "slow food." You have eaten a number of meals with them, too. And, like the notes for the rural community, you record the start and ending times for every meal. You wonder if these "slow" meals are actually slower than those in the more traditional countryside. [SEB2008]
Sore Muscle. One day when you are meeting with some women at the market, you complain about a sore arm. You had been doing some heavy lifting and likely strained a muscle. One of the women said that she could help relieve the pain. She disappeared and, a few minutes later, came back with a bowl containing a mixture of macerated plants. She put this on your arm and wrapped it with a cloth. Later in the day you did, indeed, feel better. Knowing that one test does not really tell you anything, you decide to do a test of the woman's proposed remedy. You enlist the help of the amateur weight lifting club. If a member complains of a sore muscle, they are given a paste that is rubbed onto the affected area. Relief occurs within a day. Without treatment, the pain persists. You use either the woman's plant treatment or a placebo is created that mimics the appearance of the test treatment. The plant treatment paste versus placebo is used randomly. Each person reports on the success of the treatment on the day following its application. Is the plant treatment more successful than the placebo?
Edge Effect. You have been having conservation discussions with the people in a rural village. One of them, quite surprisingly, has observed, "I heard a scientist say that the perimeter areas of fields contain more species than the center areas. I can believe this for crop areas, but that just doesn't seem right for our woodlots." You decide that you might be able to resolve this difference of opinion between the local ecological knowledge and scientific theory. You establish randomly located sample plots at the periphery and inside forested areas in woodlots in the vicinity of the village. What is the outcome of your analysis?
Invasive Takeover. One of the questions in your interviews about conservation concerns involves whether there have been any changes in the plant distributions that the inhabitants can remember. This question elicits lots of responses as people tell you how things have changed since they were children. While many of these reports involve anthropogenic changes, like cutting down forest lots, you also get some comments that a particular plant species has taken over quite a bit of land, particularly in areas that are outside the croplands. You follow-up on this suggestion that there may be an invasive species. The land surveying company has some air photos of the area and you find that you can see the implicated species is easily in the pictures. You use a series of photos to estimate the area covered by the implicated species over the past three decades. What is the trend?
Home Gardens. "Help us make this a green community," says the tag-line on an advertisement for a new housing development, just outside the urban core, will have lot sizes that allow for large gardens. This housing development is promoting home gardens as a way to make the community "green." The development organization has asked you to help them start a dialog with the potential residents. You design a survey that will be given to each potential home buyer. This brief survey is based on a list the edible plants. Each family is asked to indicate what they might plant in their home garden if they were to purchase a new home in this community. There are also demographic questions so that urban dwellers (who have had no previous experience with a home garden) are able to have their surveys separated from those people who have previously had a home garden. Can you tell developer anything based on this survey? [SEB2008]
Potluck Dinners. "You should really come to my church's potluck dinner is you want to see diversity," declares one of the women in a group that you are interviewing about ethnic groups and culinary diversity. What follows is a spirited debate among the women about which religious denomination has the most diversity. Since many of the churches in a community have a tradition of having a potluck dinner once a month, you decide that this difference of opinion can be tested. The potluck meal follows the morning service and involves individuals bringing a single dish of food to the church. These dishes are then shared. Since this is a frequent event, the contributions of each individual are relatively stable so that there is a relatively balanced number of main dishes, salads, and deserts. You design a survey so that potluck dinner contributors can identify all the different types of plants in the dishes that they have brought. Are there differences between different religious denominations? [SEB2008]
Really Dumb. "Kids from the city are really dumb," shouts one of the students in a group that you are interviewing. "They don't know nothing about growing stuff." You wonder if this is true and seize an opportunity to test this assertion when you are asked to organize some field trips for urban student to a demonstration farm on the university's experimental station. The demonstration farm has plantings of most of the vegetables that are eaten in the region. There is also an orchard that has representatives of the trees for most of the popular fruits. You prepare by making large labels for the garden and orchard plants. Each label is simply a number. Students are asked to write the name of plant that corresponds to each number. You organize trips for both urban and rural students. Are the urban students "really dumb" when it comes to identifying crops? [SEB2008]
Market Phenology. "I love living in the city because I can get any fruit or vegetable I want, pretty much year around," says one of your informants in a survey regarding urban markets. This was in contrast to many of the comments made by other people that country living is generally better. You want to follow up on the availability question, so you collect information each month on what produce is in the market. You do this for both the urban and rural markets in the surrounding area. What can you say about these data? [SEB2008]
Ethnic Flowers. One of the questions in your interview inquires about how a person chooses flowers for display in a home. Your respondent provides a definitive response, "In our tradition, there is considerable meaning attached to flowers. The kind of flower that I display at home, or the kind that I give someone, has a distinct message." The respondent continues with a list of "messages" that can be represented by flowers. "We have marvelous flower shops where you can get just what you need," your respondent concludes. You wonder whether there is actually more diversity in the local flower shop in this area as compared to an area populated by a different ethnic group where your respondents didn't talk about the need for flower variety. You survey flower shops in each area. You count the number of buckets of each type of flower in each shop as a quantitative measure of abundance. Is there a difference in diversity between the two ethnic neighborhoods? [SEB2008]