Investigating variation

Question 1

What is variation?

Answer 1

Variation is the differences that exist between individuals

Question 2

What can variation be caused by?

Answer 2

Genetic factors

Environmental factors

Question 3

What genetic factors can cause variation?

Answer 3

Different species have different genes which cause variation between species.
Individuals of the same species have the same genes but have different alleles which causes variation within species

Question 4

What type of environmental differences can cause variation?

Answer 4

Climate
Food
Lifestyle

Question 5

Why do you use population samples?

Answer 5

It is too time consuming and impossible to catch all individuals in the group

Question 6

Why is random sampling important?

Answer 6

To avoid any biases in the sample and it accurately represents the whole sample

Question 7

How can you make a random sample?

Answer 7

Divide the sample area into a grid and create co-ordinates and then generate co-ordinates at random

Question 8

How do you calculate the mean?

Answer 8

mean = total of all values in the data / the number of values in your data

Question 9

What does the standard deviation show?

Answer 9

The spread of values around the mean

Question 10

What does it mean if the standard deviation bars dont overlap?

Answer 10

The results are statistically significantly different

Question 11

What does it mean if the standard deviation bars overlap?

Answer 11

The results are not statistically significant