Learning resources bulletin - December 2009

Dear teachers,

This bulletin presents free information and teaching materials available on Statistics Canada's Learning resources website.

Thank you for your readership in 2009 and best wishes for the coming year!  

In this issue:

• New home page at www.statcan.gc.ca
• Prepare your students for the 2010 Winter Olympics, review Participation in Sport and Kids' Sport (primary-secondary)
• Examine the characteristics of the communities along the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay route (primary-secondary)
• Census at School and sport: complete the questionnaire online, compare class results for question on 'most enjoyed' sport (primary-secondary)
• Updates to Health and Aboriginal Studies resources (secondary)
• Federal Debt data in a new lesson (secondary)
• Data to approximate cubic models (secondary)
• Education services in your region

New home page www.statcan.gc.ca

At Statistics Canada it is important for us to offer our web site visitors relevant, reliable information in a simple and effective way. As part of a continuous improvement process based on visitors' feedback, we have renovated the Statistics Canada home page.

You will note that 'Students and teachers' now appear in the left frame of the Statistics Canada home page. This saves time and gives you, our valued users, quick and easy access to our Learning resources site where you will find information and tools designed specifically for use in class, compiled by school subject.

Prepare your students for the 2010 Winter Olympics, review Participation in Sport and Kids' Sport

Sport touches many aspects of Canadians' lives—our health and well-being, our social networks, our sense of social connectedness.

It is an exciting time as Canada welcomes the world in 2010 for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. In many Canadian households and classrooms, youth are turning their focus to sport. Why not introduce your students to facts about sport in Canada and the importance of sport in their daily lives.

Organized sport can help children grow, giving a sense of achievement while building teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, and communications skills? Sport also enables us to channel our energy, competitiveness and aggression in socially beneficial ways. See the studies Participation in Sports, 2005 and Kids' Sports found under the Physical education topic on the Health and Physical Education: Key resources page.

Examine the characteristics of the communities along the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay route

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay began in Victoria, British Columbia on October 30, 2009 and will end at the opening ceremony in Vancouver on February 12, 2010. The lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony signals the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The Olympic Torch will cross Canada from coast to coast carried by participants in communities from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia.

Have your students learn about Canada by following the Olympic Torch Relay route and examine the characteristics of the communities along the way (data includes numbers of children by age group, numbers of families, languages spoken, income, education and employment). Look for Community Profiles and Census Tract Profiles under interactive census tools on the Geography: Data page.

Census at School and sport

Census at School, an international project, is an exercise in active learning that has students ages 8-18 complete an online questionnaire to collect information to use in data management and critical thinking activities. There are two questions related to sport on the Canadian 2009/2010 Census at School questionnaire. The first question asks students to choose, from a list of 20 sports, the sport in which they most enjoy participating. The second question asks students who they look up to. Among the choices for response is the category 'sportsperson.'

Have your students complete the Census at School questionnaire and compare the class results with the summary results for Canada. Do the boys in your class enjoy participating in different sports than the girls? Have your class hypothesize first and then verify their predictions.

Review the Census at School questionnaire.

Explore Canadian and provincial Census at School summary results by question.

Join the over 13,000 students that have already participated this school year!

Updates to Health and Aboriginal Studies

Updates on Health and Physical Education: Key resources
For relevant information on Health, look under 'Articles' for the new Health in Canada publication which links to 'Fact sheets' on various topics such as smoking, diabetes and more. Look under 'Articles' as well for 'Guides' to the latest data on suicide and teen pregnancy. See the redesigned Health and Physical Education: Key resources page.

Updates on Aboriginal Studies: Key resources
The 2006 Census of Population reported over 1 million people who identified themselves as Aboriginals. The aboriginal population is growing at a much faster rate than the non- aboriginal population. Check out the population pyramids for a quick visual of the growing numbers of First Nations, Métis and Inuit. Visit Aboriginal Studies: Key resources and look under Reference material.

Federal Debt data in a new lesson

 This new Mathematics lesson, suggested for grades 11-12, asks students to examine data on the federal debt from 1867 to 2008. Students then model the data and work in small groups to analyze the data for separate time periods. Through investigation, students determine the relationships between the graphs and the equations of linear, quadratic, and exponential functions and use difference tables and r² values to determine what equation type best represents the data. As an extension, students can research social, political, and economic reasons that may explain the different patterns followed by the data in different periods.

Canada's federal debt data represents a combined function best modelled by a series of function types. See the lesson Piecewise modeling with multiple functions: Federal Debt.

Data to approximate Cubic models

In the real world, graphs related to human population or socioeconomic statistics rarely approximate any mathematical functions other than linear functions. However, there are some occasions where the underlying conditions lead to trends that closely approximate certain functions. We have added links to data sets including Consumer Price Index data, Gross Domestic Product data and Labour Force rate data that allow students to model cubic functions.

Visit our Function modelling using secondary data from E-STAT page and view data links for cubic functions.

Education services in your region

Need help using our resources in the classroom? Contact the Statistics Canada education representative for your region, who will be glad to help.

From our Teachers page, click on the peach coloured Education services button on the right sidebar.