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ANTON WATMAN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Math,

Raising Red Pandas

By caring for red panda cubs, scientists learn how to help this endangered species 

By Maggie Mead
From the April 2021 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will use the partial quotients method to solve division problems related to red pandas.

Lexile: 900L; 780L
Focus Area: Numbers and Operations,
Standards
  • MATHEMATICAL PRACTICES: MP1, MP6, MP7 CCSS: 4.NBT.B.6 TEKS: 4.4F

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Lexile® measure

  • 900L
  • 780L
Red panda

ANTON WATMAN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

High up in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains live some of the world’s most hard-to-find creatures: red pandas. These small mammals, about the size of a house cat, are endangered. Fewer than 10,000 remain in the wild.

Red pandas have cinnamon-colored fur and big, bushy tails. They spend most of their time in trees. Red pandas’ coloring helps them hide from predators—and from scientists. “That has limited our ability to observe them in the wild,” says biologist Elizabeth Freeman.

Freeman works at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia. Scientists there breed red pandas and help raise their young. They hope what they learn about red pandas will help save the species.

Baby Boom

In the winter, animal keepers at the institute pair male and female red pandas together. About four months later, red panda mothers give birth to fuzzy, pint-sized cubs. 

“You can’t help but smile when you see them, especially the cubs,” says Freeman.

Cubs are vulnerable during their first year of life. Animal keeper Jessica Kordell gives the cubs regular health checkups. If a mother dies or can’t nurse her babies, staff at the center must raise them by hand.

Cub Care

Red panda cubs in captivity require constant attention. Researchers weigh, feed, and observe every cub to make sure it’s healthy and growing strong.

Two red panda babies

Janice Sveda, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Newborns are about the size of a human hand.

Baby red panda drinking milk from a bottle

Janice Sveda, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Orphaned cubs are fed a special formula.  

Two red pandas playing

Janice Sveda, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Playing helps older cubs practice survival skills. 

Trouble in the Wild

Despite their name, red pandas aren’t closely related to black-and-white panda bears. In fact, red pandas aren’t bears at all. They’re distantly related to raccoons, weasels, and skunks. 

Special adaptations help red pandas survive in cool, rainy Himalayan forests. In recent years, though, red pandas’ forest habitat has changed. People have cleared trees to make room for farms and roads. 

Range of Red Pandas

Red pandas live in forests in the Himalayan mountains of Asia. But human activity has destroyed parts of this habitat.

World map of Asia, highlighting where red pandas live

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Another big threat is climate change. As temperatures in the region warm, scientists expect red pandas will move higher up in the mountains where it’s cooler. There they’ll compete with other species for food and shelter. No one knows if red pandas can survive in these higher areas.

That’s why scientists hope raising the red pandas in captivity will teach them more about the mysterious animals. 

A barren landscape with trees chopped down

Sandesh Kadur/NaturePL.com 

As forests are cut down, red pandas’ natural habitat shrinks.

Life Lessons

Red panda laying on a branch

Dirk Freder/Getty Images

As the red panda cubs at the Smithsonian grow, a team observes them. Scientists use cameras to watch mothers and cubs in their dens. They study the pandas’ droppings, or poop. Chemicals in the droppings can show whether an animal is stressed or sick.

This research will give scientists a clearer idea of how to help red pandas in the wild. 

For example, if scientists learn that loud noises stress out red panda mothers, people could work to limit human activity in the forest during the times when cubs are born.

Kordell, the animal keeper, hopes that the more people learn about red pandas, the harder they will work to protect them. “We don’t want to lose this species,” she says.

Math Talk

How is division related to multiplication?

Introduction to Division
Watch a math helper video about how to divide numbers.

Division with Partial Quotients

What to Do

When you’re dividing large numbers, partial quotients can help you break the problem down and use multiplication to solve it. 

Example

An adult male red panda eats about 9,100 grams of bamboo per week. How many grams of bamboo does the red panda eat per day?

• First, set up the division problem: 9,100 ÷ 7 = ?

• Next, choose a friendly number, like a multiple of 10 or 100, that can be multiplied by the divisor (7). Place it to the right. Multiply your friendly number by the divisor and subtract the product from the dividend (9,100).

• Repeat this process with other friendly numbers until you can no longer subtract.

• Finally, add the numbers in the partial quotients column. The total is your answer, or quotient!

So the red panda eats about 1,300 grams of bamboo per day.

Now You Try It

Use your division skills to answer the following questions.

A healthy red panda cub is expected to gain about 7 grams of weight per day. If a cub has gained 434 grams of weight since its birth, how many days old would you expect the cub to be?

A. Keepers feed 3-week-old red panda cubs powdered puppy formula mixed with water. A keeper mixes 195 grams of formula to split into 3 bottles. How many grams of formula are in each bottle? 

B. Each batch of formula contains 5 times as much water as powder. If a keeper uses 320 grams of water, about how many grams of powder will the keeper need to add?

When red panda cubs are 1 month old, keepers feed them an amount of food each day that is 4 times less than their body weight. A cub weighs 312 grams. How many grams of food per day should the cub be fed?

A 1-month-old cub is fed 2,016 grams of food per week. How many grams of food does the cub eat per day?

Continue Your Learning

  • Rewatch the video “Red Panda-monium” (above). Then imagine you are an animal keeper watching over red pandas, and create a detailed task list for your day. List your tasks by the order in which they should be completed from first to last. Try to use at least 3 numbers or measurements in your list.
  • Number a set of note cards 1 through 9 and shuffle them. Select 4 cards and arrange the numbers in any order to create a 4-digit number. Then choose one additional notecard to represent the divisor. Divide the 4-digit number by the divisor using partial quotients.

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video (1)
Video
Introduction to Division

Watch a math helper video about how to divide numbers.

Introduction to Division

Watch a math helper video about how to divide numbers.
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