This Little Piggy is Warm — Activities
1. Piglet Noses
Working in groups, you will examine the distribution of comfortable piglets on a mat. Each member of your group will use a four-quadrant coordinate system grid with 15 piglets. Each piglet's nose is plotted as a point. Your group will record the coordinates for each "nose" point. Analyzing nose points will show piglet comfort zones.
1. What are the coordinates of Nose B?
a. Which piglet nose is a reflection of Nose B over the y-axis? Use the coordinates to explain how you know.
b. Which nose is a reflection of Nose B over the x-axis? Use the coordinates to explain how you know.
c. In terms of absolute values, how are the coordinates similar?
2. What are the coordinates of Nose N? How far is Nose N away from the origin?
a. Are other noses the same distance from the origin? Using the nose coordinates, explain how you know.
b. Both noses are the same distance away from the origin, but the values of their coordinates differ. Which nose has the smallest x-axis coordinate?
3. What is the distance from Nose F to Nose C?
a. What is the distance from Nose F to Nose G?
b. Use the coordinates for Noses C, F, and G to write a rule for finding the distance between two opposite points with the same x-coordinates and a rule for finding the distance between two opposite points with the same y-coordinates.
4. Which noses are at the same horizontal distance from the y-axis? How many units away from the y-axis are the noses? What do their coordinates have in common?
5. Which noses are at the same vertical distance from the x-axis? How many units away from the x-axis are the noses? What do their coordinates have in common?
2. Perfectly Comfortable Piglets
Piglets are 2 inches wide and 6 inches long at birth. Each piglet should be allowed 12 square inches of mat space. On the grid, a pig can be represented by a two-block by six-block rectangle. Use paper cut into rectangles to arrange the piglets on the grid. To be comfortable, the pigs must not overlap.
- All piglets whose noses have two positive coordinates should lie parallel to the x-axis.
- All piglets whose noses have two negative coordinates should lie parallel to the y-axis.
Once you determine the proper location of each piglet, check with your teacher to verify that the piglets are correctly positioned. Then, draw each piglet on the grid.
1. To avoid overlapping, piglets whose noses have a positive x-coordinate and a negative y-coordinate lie parallel to which axis?
2. To avoid overlapping, is there a rule for the position of piglets whose noses have a negative x-coordinate and a positive y-coordinate?
3. Place the Heat Zone Grid on your piglets’ grid. The background colors represent different heat zones.
Are any of your piglets in more than one heat zone?
4. These piglets are comfortable. Comfortable piglets have room in front of their noses so they can breathe. They have room to stretch or roll. They are warm enough not to pile on one another and cool enough not be stretched out at the edges of the mat trying to cool off.
3. Piglet Comfort Zone
The average piglet nurses for 24 seconds every 52 minutes, so they grow quite quickly. Within its first day, a piglet chooses its permanent nipple. Nipples toward the rear of the sow produce less milk than do those toward the front. The numbering system for nipples starts with the front-most nipple.
The table gives data about a litter of 14 piglets. Compute the weight gain of each piglet after 5 weeks. Then, compute the average weight gain. Fill in the table below with your answers
1. What conclusions can you draw about the relationship between birth weight, 5-week weight gain, and nipple number?
2. What are the nose coordinates and 5-week weight gain of the piglet lying entirely in a 96°F zone?
nose coordinates:
5-week weight gain:
3. What are the nose coordinates and 5-week weight gain of the piglet lying entirely in a 94°F zone?
nose coordinates:
5-week weight gain:
4. What are the nose coordinates and 5-week weight gain of piglets partially in a 96°F zone?
| Coordinates | 5-Week Weight Gain |
5. What are the nose coordinates and 5-week weight gain of piglets partially in a 94°F zone?
| Coordinates | 5-Week Weight Gain |
6. Explain the relationship between birth weight and preferred heat zone.
7. Piglets need space. At birth, each piglet needs an area equal to 112 of a square foot. At 5 weeks, a piglet needs an area equal to 14 of a square foot. A 5-week-old piglet requires a rectangular area that is 13 of a foot (4 inches) wide.
What should be the length of the rectangular area?
8. A pork farm produces 1,200 litters per year with a 9% piglet loss. The average size of a litter is 12 piglets. How many piglets does the farm produce in a year? (To find 9%, multiply by 0.09.)
9. The new mat drops the loss to 7%. How many more piglets will be produced using the new mat?
