CitySLUSD Liaison Highlights 2009 0917

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ft's About Us i Introduce Census with these ter. w , I=' cs GOAL: To explore how populationGOAL: To conduct a changes over time A*,- . , classroom census Directions: M kT H Directions: � Divide students into small, even groups. If your students wanted to improve an Ask groups to imagine that they are each a aspect of your classroom, what would it town and have them stand in separate areas be? Invite them to find out by creating a of the classroom. classroom census. . Give each student a token and invite students . As a class, choose one or two questions that to pretend that they can trade in their tokens would lead to classroom improvements (e.g., as a group for something that is good for Do you like posters? Do you like student art their community, such as a park, school, or or poetry on the walls? What if anything, is baseball field. Have group members decide difficult to see when sitting at your desks?) together how they will use their tokens. Write 3. Write the census question(s) on the board. each community's choice on the board. Explain that a census is confidential. Have . Randomly add new people to each of the students secretly write their answers on groups (e.g., ask everyone wearing jeans to sticky notes. move one group to the left, or ask everyone 4. Collect the sticky notes. Tally the results with brown eyes to be in a new community). in a simple bar graph by grouping all the 4. Ask the groups to have another discussion same answers in a vertical column. What do about how their tokens should be spent. students notice about the graph? How could Did the population changes cause any you improve your classroom based on the of the groups to change their plans? results? What other information do students Why or why not? think it would be interesting to collect? . Analyze and graph population and a Conduct more in-depth censuses in your demographic data by downloading your school or classroom by downloading your grade level's Managing Data lesson at grade level's About the Census lesson at www,census.gov/schools. www.census.gov/school,. 11111 MAKE A NIGHTTIME MAP: The lights from big cities 0 ROUTE 48: Challenge students to find a route that can be seen from space. Use the United States passes through every contiguous state without Demographics map to create a nighttime map of the backtracking. United States -the greater the population density, the brighter the spot! 12 STATELY STATISTICS, Encourage your class to explore a state that is not their own! Ask student 19 DESIGN AN ICON: Invite students to design icons for pairs to research the geography, government, size, geographical features such as the Rocky Mountains, and recent census data for a state of their choice the Great Lakes, and, the Mississippi River. and present their findings to the class.