Learning activities/School Census

Notes from Nigeria 5/07

They were really shy about it, but finally they explained what they were doing. And then all the Primary 5 children helped us do the counting.

Everything was recorded directly on the XO. We went back and, together with them, counted the boys and girls in Primary 6.

File:Graph3.jpg

It took a long time for some, but those who finished faster helped the others.

"Wednesday was for Primary 6... [The teacher] chose to do math. The topic was graphs. He introduced the concept of ‘population’ to the children, asking them if they knew what it meant. We listened to different answers. Then he explained that the objective of the day was to know the population of Galadima School and how they could represent it with graphs. He went on to explain bar graphs. Afterwards, with my suggestion, we split into 5 teams, and each one had to go to a classroom and count the number of boys and the number of girls in it. My team had to go to Primary 5. The children asked the classroom teacher for permission to count the students because it was part of their class work. When we came back, [the teacher] explained with lots of details how to graph the Galadima School population. Children didn't wait until he explained the whole thing. They were already in Paint making the graph. They wanted to be accurate, so they tried and tried... and tried and tried... until one of them came up with a way to do it easier or faster. Then they shared the trick with the others... but then someone else came up with a way of doing it more accurately and passed it on to the others... Everybody was really into their work or helping others..."

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Activity: School Census

Count the number of students in your school; then make a graph to display your results.

Created By

Galadima School, Primary 6

Suggested Age Group

Grades 4-6

Subjects and Skills

Math: Counting, graphing, understanding data and statistics.

Arts: Understanding visual displays of information, creating graphs with Draw

Technology: Using Draw to make graphs.

Goals and Objectives

Short description of learning objectives.

Resources

• Pencil and paper (or XO to take notes)
• XO with Draw

Activity

1. Introduce concept of population, using example of school as population.
2. Explain how to represent population with a bar graph.
3. Split into teams-- one team for each classroom in school (or grade)-- and send students to count the number of boys and girls in each class.
4. In teams, use Draw to make a graph for each classroom.

Extended Activities

School Census

1. Combine graphs to make graph for entire school (or grade).

Family Census

1. Count the members of your family.
2. Collect family data to make graph of family size.

Related Activities

• Bar Charts: http://cnx.org/content/m10217/latest/
• Elementary Statistics: http://www.oercommons.org/courses/elementary-statistics/

Commentary: School Census

Comments, feedback, links to other classes using this activity.