My daughter conducted a survey

Awhile back, we were celebrating some holiday or another with my extended family. In the chitter chatter of the evening, a few of the grown ups were discussing pets. This prompted my daughter (who was 7 at the time) to find out whether more people liked cats or dogs. She grabbed a piece a paper, markers, and a batch of stickers (as always, I’m so thankful for Grandma’s art supply stash). Then, she went around asking everyone which they liked better, dogs or cats. Here are the results:

I think her response rate was around 90% (gotta love her persistence). And given that she considers herself a cat person, she was very pleased with the results.

Watching her conduct her survey, which I did not help with at all, reminded me how innate our curiosity is. We’re driven to explore and understand (when we have the bandwidth in our busy lives).

Sometimes, data collection and reporting can feel like a slog, but at the heart of that work is the joy of discovery.