The
Lesson
Whole Class Teaching
Explain to the children that they are going to investigate what changes
have occurred in Britain since 1948 and some of the reasons for these
changes. They are going to use data to help them with the investigation.
Demonstrate how to navigate to the statistics website http://www.statistics.gov.uk
and give a brief summary of the type of information available. (This
is a government website which provides a range of useful statistics about
life in Britain.)
Q If you want to find out about the changes in car ownership since
1948 which keywords would you enter into the search box?
Use keywords such "Car ownership" - rather than prose such as,
"How has car ownership changed since 1948?"
Once the search has returned some results, scroll to the bottom and choose
to "show all data results" as this will yield the full list
of datasets. Guide the children to the most appropriate link shown, which
is: Households with regular use of a car, 1961-1998: Social Trends
30. Select this link and choose to display the complete dataset.
Teachers should note children's responses as these will be used later.
Q What do the numbers mean?
Draw out from children that the numbers are actually percentages of households
with one car, and those with two or more cars. The third column is the
sum of the two.
Q What is the general trend?
The general trend is that the percentage of households with cars has increased.
Note however that the percentage of households with one car only has remained
relatively stable since 1968 at about 44-45%. The real growth in car ownership
has been due to households acquiring second and additional cars.
Q Why might more households have two or more cars nowadays?
In real terms cars are cheaper now than they were. Households have greater
disposable income possibly because there is more than one breadwinner
in the house, which may increase the need for additional cars. Company
cars have also become an increasingly common benefit.
The teacher may want to download the data and graph it to show an alternative
means of displaying the same information, but this is not essential.
Q If the children were writing a report on car ownership what would
they want to include?
A report of this nature should include a summary of the main trends and
reasons for these changes. The report should also include the table and/or
graph of the data, along with headings, sub-headings and the appropriate
acknowledgement of sources.
The teacher should demonstrate how to copy the table and paste it into
word. Remind children to enter a few blank lines before pasting their
table otherwise they may find it difficult to add any text before or after
their table.
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Main Activity
Explain to the children that they are going to write a report on the
changes to holiday destinations using the statistics website.
Q What might be good key words to use when searching?
Holiday destination or holidays abroad.
Remind children to "show all data results".
Q Which will be the most useful link?
The most appropriate data set to use is "Holidays abroad: by destination,
1971-1998: Social Trends 30"
Children now search the statistics site, copy and paste their table and
write their report outlining the changes.
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Plenary
Draw the children back together and display the dataset, you may ask
a child to carry out this task.
Q What did you write in your report?
The teacher should record the information provided by the children into
a bulleted list then encourage children to revisit their own report to
ensure they have not omitted important details.
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Why use ICT
Demonstrating: With a data projector the teacher can demonstrate how
to access relevant information on the statistics website. (This can be
done on a single monitor in a classroom if a projector is not available.)
Accessing and analysing: ICT allows access to information on the
Internet that provides the teacher with a wealth of material for children
to analyse and interrogate, in this case facts about car ownership and
tourism, both historical and present day, otherwise unavailable. The use
of ICT to quickly change the data and information provides the teacher
with opportunities to differentiate the work at a higher level.
Presenting, re-presenting and communicating: ICT provides opportunities
for children to draft, refine, organise and present reports using the
datasets from the statistics site. ICT allows you to integrate different
forms of information i.e. graph, table, text etc.
Testing and confirming:
ICT allows children to formulate hypotheses, then interrogate evidence
from the Internet on the statistics website in order to substantiate their
conclusions.
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