The Household Environment Survey - School Edition

The ability to collect and analyse statistical information is an important skill in the current curriculum. With the support of Professor Dick Mansfield and Peter K. MacLeod of the Canadian Council for Geographic Education, we have developed a school edition of the Household Environment Survey. By making this survey available to schools and having it completed by students, we hope to demonstrate the challenges and importance of statistical data collection; improve educators' and students' knowledge of data collection methods and analytical techniques; and provide cross curricular materials to the education community.

The Household Environment Survey was designed to collect information on the extent to which households were adopting facilities, products and behaviours that were, or were perceived to be, "environmentally friendly". It was also used to monitor changes in behaviour resulting from public concern for the environment. It was originally conducted in 1991 and repeated in 1994. The school edition uses the same questionnaire and provides an interactive form that classes may use to submit their results from the survey to a database containing results from other schools.

Suggested subjects and grade levels

Intermediate level Mathematics, Social Studies, Computer Science and Language Arts
Senior level Mathematics, Geography, Computer Science and Environmental Science

Overview

Students explore data collected on a national survey of household environmental practices and then collect their own information using the same questionnaire. Class results are aggregated using tally sheets. The aggregate data may be submitted, using an electronic form, to a database containing results from other schools. An interactive program immediately returns the class results as percentages displayed in a table. The table also contains the national results and summary data from all other schools who have submitted information to the database.

Guidelines for completing the survey at your school

If you wish to conduct the survey in your school, we recommend the following procedure:

• preview the program;
• explore the data collected by Statistics Canada using the national summary tables (.PDF) and the quiz;
• define your objectives for conducting the survey (How will the information be used?);
• define the target population (e.g. the households of all students in your class, in your grade or in your school);
• determine how many students will be participating and reproduce a sufficient quantity of questionnaires using the master (.PDF) supplied;
• review the vocabulary and questionnaire in class, having the students conduct practice interviews with each other. (Read questions and statements printed in bold letters on the questionnaire. Read phrases in brackets when the respondent requests further explanation of the questions. Mark only one answer for each question. Follow the "Go to" instructions carefully, as certain questions do not apply to all respondents. The numbers beside the answer circles are used for data capture and processing.) Review exercises;
• have the students take a copy of the questionnaire home and interview a household member who is familiar with the services and products used in the home;
• have the students edit each others' questionnaire for completeness and accuracy;
• discuss the interviewing experience, suggesting solutions to any problems that arose;
• compile the data contained on the completed questionnaires using a tally sheet;
• submit your aggregate results to the school edition database using the data entry form;
• compare your results to the school database results, the national summary tables( .PDF) and the provincial results.

Hints for identification and analysis of collection problems and data differences

The questions on access to recycling programs depend on the respondent's interpretation of access (e.g. a recycling depot may be available but it is 20 kilometres away so the respondent does not consider it to be accessible.).

Schools in rural areas or small communities are less likely to have access to recycling programs, so there may be a very noticeable difference from the national figures.

If students complete the questionnaires themselves, you may see lower values for other environmental practices. Students are often excluded from purchasing decisions made in their households and may not know whether they use environmentally friendly products. Asking student to interview their parents will yield better results and create an opportunity for students to discuss school with their parents.

The results on principal method of travel to work may add to more than 100% as more than one person in a household may work outside the home. Schools wishing to use this section to assess travel to school should contact Learning resources at Statistics Canada.

Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader [Acrobat~1.5Meg] to view files marked as .PDF.

Please e-mail comments or examples of how you used this exercise in your class.