Australian CensusAtSchool have just released results from their latest survey:

Australian students say school bullying is the most important social issue to tackle, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

Bullying at school has been the highest rated social issue, across Australia over the last four years, ABS assistant director of education services unit Frances Mawdsley said.

“Reducing bullying has been the social issue of highest importance to Australian students since 2010, with a peak level of importance recorded in 2012,” she said.

“It has actually reduced across Australia in 2013, but still remains as the number on issue.”

Students rated the importance of reducing bullying in the survey, a median of 84 out of 100, Ms Mawdsley said.

West Australian students had rated the importance 80.4 out of 100.

The figures indicate that bullying causes a great deal of anxiety among children, ECU Child Health Promotion Research Centre Professor Donna Cross said.

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USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the American Statistical Association (ASA) have developed a new Census at School Food Preference Survey lesson plan and activities for students in grades 5-8.  Building on the existing ASA Census at School program, the Food Preference Survey teaches statistical and agricultural literacy to children through common core state standards in Mathematics, Language Arts, Nutrition, Social Studies, and Family Consumer Sciences.

“Increasing statistical literacy in youth is an important way to develop the next generation of statisticians,” said NASS Administrator Dr. Cynthia Clark.  “The Census at School program is a way to make statistics fun and engaging for students, allowing them to compare information about themselves with that of other students in the United States and other countries.”

Students complete an online survey and submit the data to a national database. Statistical methods and concepts are then used to compare class results with random samples from peers in the United States and other countries.  Students will learn about statistics, nutrition, and cultural differences; apply graphing, mathematics, and analysis skills to real-world examples; and justify their analysis of data.

The Food Preference Survey, using three questions from the full Census questionnaire, asks students about their favorite food and beverages. The activities use the data to analyze survey results and discuss whether the results surprise the class; which foods are most popular; whether certain beverages are more popular with girls or boys; whether and how the cafeteria could use the data to plan events and meals; if there is a relationship between favorite foods and whether someone is a vegetarian; and much more. The Food Preference Survey focuses specifically on information that could be useful to agriculture-in-the-classroom teachers, as well as other teachers of the common core standards addressed.

This lesson plan was developed by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the American Statistical Association (ASA), with guidance from the National Agriculture in the Classroom organization (www.agclassroom.org). For more information about the Food Preference Survey please visit www.nass.usda.gov/Education_and_Outreach.

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Accompanying today’s release of the 2013 data we have updated CensusAtSchool’s data tools to have the same simple, clean look and feel that we introduced for the rest of the site late last year.

For data-viewer and table-maker the changes the user experiences are purely cosmetic. The way in which settings are chosen in random-sampler has changed and now provides some control of sample sizes from subpopulations.

All data tools now have a prominent “Help” button near the top of the page.

Use the data tools »

A story about Census at School will air during Afternoons with Jim Mora on Radio New Zealand National (101FM) today, Monday 22 July at 3.30pm, and a slightly longer version again during Our Changing World on Thursday 25 July.

Nichola Coe, Head of Maths at Kapiti College, is visited by Radio New Zealand to learn about CensusAtSchool. Nichola opens with this beautifully worded thought:

“I think there is a song to be sung behind every graphical representation.”

Professor Chris Wild and Rachel Cunliffe are also talked to.

Listen to the story:

Questions on value of homework – NZ Herald

Engaged parents help kids more – Wanganui Chronicle

Homework merit for children questioned – Nelson Mail

Three-quarters of students aged 6 to 12 say they did homework the night before they completed a nationwide survey – and on average, that extra work took 53 minutes. A total of 69% of teenage students say they did homework, and that on average, they spent 1 hour 13 minutes doing it.

This insight has emerged from the educational project CensusAtSchool, which so far has involved more than 19,000 students from 600 schools answering questions about their lives. For the first time this year, CensusAtSchool asked students whether they had done homework the night before filling in the online survey, and how long they spent on it.

“The numbers are just a snapshot, but they are food for thought in the lively debate around homework,” says CensusAtSchool co-director Rachel Cunliffe. “It seems that everyone has an opinion on how much homework children should do – and more recently, we’ve seen some education experts suggesting that children are, perhaps, better off playing after school rather than studying.”

The survey also found that 74% of teen girls said they did homework the night before – but just 61% of teen boys. Some students said they did two or more hours of homework – 7% of all 6 to 12-year-olds and 15% of all 13 to 18-year-olds.

WHO’S DOING HOMEWORK?

Students who did homework the night before CensusAtSchool:
All, aged 6-12: 77%
All, aged 13-18: 69%

Average time on homework the night before CensusAtSchool:
All, aged 6-12: 53 mins
All aged 13-18: 1 hour 13 mins

Boys aged 6 to 12: 53 mins
Girls aged 6 to 12: 54 mins

Boys aged 13 to 18: 1 hour 5 mins
Girls aged 13 to 18: 1 hour 17 mins

Source: CensusAtSchool

Students were also asked to name their favourite singers or bands. Anyone with a daughter will not be at all surprised to hear that the girls’ favourite group is English-Irish boy band One Direction, formed out of the 2010 series of singing competition The X Factor in the United Kingdom. Next on the list is Taylor Swift, followed by Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Beyonce. For boys, the top of the list is American singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, followed by Eminem, Macklemore, Imagine Dragons, and Coldplay.

CensusAtSchool is a biennial online project that brings statistics to life in the classroom. Supervised by teachers, students aged between 10 and 18 (Year 5 to Year 13) answer 32 questions about their lives, many of them involving practical activities such as weighing and measuring, then become ‘data detectives’ as they analyse the results in class. This year, more than 1408 teachers have run CAS in their classrooms.

CensusAtSchool, now in its sixth edition, is a collaborative project involving teachers, the University of Auckland’s Department of Statistics, Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Education. It is part of an international effort to boost statistical capability among young people, and is carried out in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the US, Japan and South Africa. The countries share some questions so comparisons can be made, but the majority reflect New Zealand students’ interests.

CensusAtSchool co-director Professor Chris Wild, of the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland, adds, “The survey produces data about kids, from kids, for kids, to enrich their learning about how to collect, explore and analyse data. But the project goes much further, by providing support to teachers.”

CensusAtSchool videos may now be downloaded so you can play them offline.

Look for the download button up the top left when playing a video:

Clicking on the download button will either download the file to your computer, or open the video file in a new window which you can then save.

This morning, Rachel Cunliffe spoke with Kathryn Ryan about the CensusAtSchool project:

• Teen girls flock to short smart tweets – NZ Herald
• Bebo out as girls flock to Twitter – Central Leader 29 May 2013 p 14
• Leighton Smith and Larry Williams discussed the results on their Newstalk ZB radio shows.