More Census Math

Last week, I began exploring the Census Bureau and shared the first activities on predicting and growth.  Today, I'll be sharing the activities they've designed to use real life data with statistics.  The activities are designed for grades from Kindergarten to Twelfth so even the younger ones  have the opportunity to explore statistics.

For grades K to 5, there are 10 different activities ranging from using fractions to compare amusement parks by state to learning more about college degrees and lifetime earnings.

The amusement park activity, suggested for grade 3, begins with students brainstorming the number of amusement parks in their state which for Alaska is zero.  The only amusement rides we get are from visiting companies for the state fair and other things.  The second step is to have students use the data from 2016 to create a visual representation of the number of amusement parks in each of the 50 states in fractional form.  Students use the visual representation to answer questions based on the data. The activity comes with both the teacher and student versions for this activity.

For grades 6 to 8, there are 15 activities available ranging from fitting line to data for education and earnings to two way tables for biking or walking to work, to interpreting dots and box plots to creating and interpreting histograms.  These 15 are more focused on the learning more about the different types of graphs, etc.

I checked out the exercise on understanding the distribution of data in regard to  pet food manufacturers.  The suggested grade level is sixth and is expected to take one class period.   The students look at sorted and unsorted data, histograms, dot plots, box plots, and one more to learn to read different forms of data so they can answer questions about pet manufacturing.  Most of us just look at one form of data when teaching probability and statistics to students and this gives them the chance to read multiple forms at once and interpret what they've read.  A very good exercise.

For grades 9 to 12, there are nine activities ranging from educational level and marriage age, to aging, to differences in earnings and marriage age based on age and sex.  Each topic has a suggested grade level and time.  The aging activity provides students with data from 136 counties throughout the United States for them to interpret and use to estimate populations of people  65 and older.

All lessons come with objectives, materials, suggested grade level, time, everything you need to teach a lesson.  This site also offers warm-up exercises, a variety of resources, and so much more.  If you want some realistic statistic activities designed with real life data collected by the Census bureau, give this a shot and have fun.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.