Getting ready for the Census: 2006 Teacher's Kit > Lesson Plans >

Activity 3: Important Decisions Don't Just Happen! Using Data to Plan Your Services

Download activity 3 in PDF format (PDF)

Overview
Learning objectives
Vocabulary
Materials
Getting started
Census activity
Extension/enrichment

Overview

This activity gives students hands-on experience with census data, introduces them to data for small geographic areas, refines decision-making skills and demonstrates some of the actual uses of census data.

Accordingly, students will examine sets of imaginary data associated with several community services, decide which neighbourhoods would benefit most from each service, and illustrate their findings on a grid map. (1 to 2 class periods)

Note: See the Teacher's Guide for general background on the census and census vocabulary.

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Learning objectives

• Interpret a statistical table and a grid map.
• Sort and rank numeric values.
• Graphically display information on a grid map.
• Name at least one piece of information collected in a census.

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Vocabulary

Census, census data, grid

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Materials

• Teacher's Guide
• Worksheet: Important Decisions Don't Just Happen! and answers to the worksheet activities (printer-friendly format)
• Transparency of worksheet 1 and coloured markers (not included)

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Getting started

1. Ask your students to imagine that they are the advisors to the town council in a community where three-quarters of the families have children younger than six years. What do they think would be the special concerns of residents in this community? Ask your students what special services they would advise the town council to include in its plans. The answers will vary but will probably include schools, day-care centres, playgrounds, libraries and health centres. Have students explain their recommendations. Point out that their decisions were influenced by the number of families with young children.
2. Explain to the students that real-life decisions also require this type of statistical data. The Census of Canada is an important source of such data. The census is conducted by Statistics Canada every five years and the next census will take place on May 16, 2006. Spend time discussing the upcoming census with the class, especially how census data are used in the everyday life of the community. Census data are used at the local, provincial and federal government levels as well as by community organizations, businesses and individuals. (See Teacher's Guide)
3. Tell the students that they are going to have a chance to make some decisions for another imaginary community using the type of data that is produced in a census.

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Census activity

1. Distribute the Worksheet: Important Decisions Don't Just Happen! and have a student read aloud for the class the three paragraphs under the first question: How many school-aged children are there in your community?
2. Explain to the students that they are going to be researchers at Data-R-Us. Their task will be to select the best neighbourhood in the town of Petunia for some new community services.
3. The length of this activity may warrant conducting part of it aloud. You may also want to take the students through the tables. It helps to copy Table 2 and the map with its legend on the chalkboard or on overhead transparencies. Students could link the patterns in the legend with the numbers selected from Table 2 by using different coloured markers.
4. This exercise lends itself to group work. Divide the class into groups of three to five students and have them determine where to locate the services on the map.
   Note: The selection of the medical centre area is both the hardest and the easiest for the students to locate. They must look for high numbers in two table categories (People - 15 years and under and People - 65 years and over) at the same time. By solving the playground and seniors' centre sections of the exercise and overlapping the patterns where appropriate, the medical centre area magically appears.
5. Once your students have correctly identified the best group of neighbourhoods for each service, ask them to pinpoint (within that group) where the service should be located (using the letters A to D and a solid line for the bus route). The location should be the spot that makes the service most accessible to all the people in the selected group of neighbourhoods. These locations have been identified for you on the answer sheet's map.

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Extension/enrichment

1. Have your students discuss other census data that would be important in researching the best location for these services. Of course not all other important data are necessarily census-related. Availability of land, land prices in the community, existing street patterns and the present locations of similar services will be considered in the selection of a site.
2. Ask your students to visit the Statistics Canada Web site and research census data on the age distribution of their own community and province under the “Community Profiles” button. Then, have the students report on any new services that have become established. Why are these new services located where they are? Municipal offices, chambers of commerce and provincial development agencies are good sources of current information. Local businesses that have moved away or that have not succeeded could also be investigated

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