Find monthly-themed activities and resources for use in your classroom or at home. They offer students an opportunity to learn about and work with Census Bureau data while celebrating holidays, special observances, and current events specific to the month.
This month, we have teaching materials for Family Fun Month, Book Lover’s Day, Back to School and more!
This is a very special time of the year. From spending a day at the beach to having a little trivia fun, there are plenty of ways to celebrate the month! These Statistics in Schools (SIS) resources can help keep your students engaged while spending quality time with their loved ones.
Kahoot! Games
Students can explore our Kahoot! games featuring kid-friendly Census Bureau data on everything from the U.S. population to U.S. businesses. While playing, kids learn fun facts like the percentage of people age 25 and older whose highest level of education was high school; the most populous state in 1790 (during the young nation’s first decennial census); and the total number of U.S. amusements parks!
My Family Tree
Recognize and show honor to family members with the My Family Tree activity. Students can construct a family tree and explore the first time their relatives were counted in a census.
Word Find and Crossword
Expand your students’ knowlegde of census-related terms with the word find and crossword warm-up activities. Students can learn terms related to population, education and other data we collect.
Can you guess how many amusement parks there are in the United States? Share our Using Fractions to Compare Amusements Parks by States activity with your students and learn fun facts like the total number of amusement parks in their state and the nation. Students can write the numbers as fractions and create a visual model of the data.
SIS has a variety of standards-based activities for all grade levels. In this section of our newsletter, an SIS staff member has handpicked one of their favorites for you to explore. Discover the Adopting an Entrepreneurial Mindset -- Using Census Data for Business high school history activity:
Finding the best location to start a business is among the key things people must consider when starting a business. In this activity, students imagine they own gas stations across the county. Using the Census Business Builder data access tool, students gather and analyze information to determine whether New York County, New York, or a neighboring county is the best place to open this business. Students will look at different variables related to gas stations and their potential customers to help make their decision. For example, one question asks students what else, other than information available in the tool, do they still need to know before deciding where to open a gas station. Students might consider the cost of living in each county; the number of people in each county who typically use public transportation; and how other gas stations in each county perform.
This activity is a great way to get students to think like entrepreneurs! Some students may aspire to be business owners one day and this activity does a great job of walking them through things to consider and provides a tool that can help them prepare.
The activity includes step-by-step instructions on how to gather data and organize them using a graphic organizer. As an extension to the activity, students can complete the activity with a business type and location of their choice. As we move towards becoming a more data-driven world this will be a good way to help prepare students for life after high school!
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