Student wins prize for cirriculum studies

by Keith Matheson, Atlantic Region and Joel Yan, (ulp@statcan.gc.ca) Dissemination Division

Andrew Maw (right), Assistant Director of Advisory Services in the Atlantic Region, presents Chris Merrick (left) with the Statistics Canada National Curriculum Studies Certificate.

Chris Merrick, a second-year student at Acadia University's School of Education, has won the Statistics Canada Prize for Curriculum Studies. Along with a cheque for $500, the Halifax native received plenty of praise for "the best curriculum project based on the application of any Statistics Canada product submitted by a student in education for the year 1997-1998." Using the 1997 version of E-STAT, Chris developed a series of lesson plans for a grade 11 Communities Studies unit in the Nova Scotia curriculum. The lesson plans Chris prepared for the Communities Studies unit apply a variety of Statistics Canada data sources accessible via E-STAT. Using this Agency data, the lesson plans address the following question: "Would I be better off to leave my rural community and move to a larger Canadian city?"

A project with a goal and a cash incentive!

Chris was introduced to E-STAT when his education professor, George Perry, asked his class to develop an E-STAT-related teaching activity for a high school social studies class in Nova Scotia.

Professor Perry and other faculty members had been introduced to E-STAT through a workshop offered by Statistics Canada's University Liaison Program in June 1997.

Professor Perry told his class about the $500 prize as an incentive to students, who were already interested in making more in-depth use of E-STAT."I'd seen the announcement about the award and decided to try for it," said Chris. "But when I starting working on my project, I found it much more interesting than I'd expected! As I became more comfortable using E-STAT, it actually became fun finding the information and creating charts and graphs. I was amazed at the amount of information available, especially for small geographic areas."

Words of praise

Professor Perry said that Chris' project has shown students the importance of statistical evidence when investigating problems. It also helps students develop retrieval, presentation and interpretation skills.

"Chris' exercise isn't about the mindless or purposeless retrieval of information," said Professor Perry. "He's posed a real problem for his students: what are the realities of leaving their rural communities and the Annapolis Valley to seek employment elsewhere in Canada? He's made great use of both Acadia Advantage and E-STAT, Statistics Canada's rich data bank."

(Acadia Advantage is a program through which students receive, as part of their registration fee at the university, an IBM notebook computer with a fast Internet modem and a built-in CD-ROM reader.)

Way to go, Chris! The Agency looks forward to working with you and other educators in applying its materials for schools.

Working together

When Chris headed back for his final year in the School of Education at Acadia University last fall, he continued using E-STAT. He has been working with a teacher at a nearby high school testing and demonstrating E-STAT's new Internet version.

Chris has also received a request from Acadia's Department of Sociology to use the database to teach a lesson in research methods.

This article was reprinted with the permission of @StatCan, Statistics Canada's internal electronic newsletter.