A number of data sets are now available in csv format for you to use with your class when investigating time series data at NZ Curriculum Level 8 (or AS 3.8).
Data sets include: NZ Alcohol consumption, Births, Rainfall, Travel and Tourism, Accomodation, Air Passengers and temperatures around the world.
Click here to go to the resource: Time series data sets 2013, Time series data sets 2012, and iNZight instructions for time series.
The New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers (NZAMT) have set a date for the 2013 biennial conference,
Absolutely Positively Mathematics and Statistics, Wellington Girls’ College,
1st – 4th October 2013.
Have a look at their new conference website for information about presenters, registration and accomodation. Registrations open on the 1st of February 2013.
All teachers of mathematics and statistics, and all workers in mathematics and statistics, are warmly invited to join for four days of being absolutely positive about our learning area.
Registrations are now open for the Statistics Teachers’ Day, Thursday 22nd November and will close on Wednesday 7 November (or earlier if full).
For more information about the day and to register, go to: Statistics Teachers’ Day 2012.
When you register you will need to choose one workshop for each of the 4 sessions and a further 2 back-up choices. These may be from any session but should be different to your other 4 choices. Registration for workshops will be on a first-in, first–served basis. In the event of one (or more) of your choices being full we will first try and accommodate you by offering you the same 4 workshops in a different mix of sessions. If we cannot do that we will use one (or both) of your back-up choices. We strongly encourage schools with more than one person attending to converse before making workshop choices and choose different workshops, to ensure that there is space for people from other schools.
Statistics NZ have a number of curriculum based activities and information that can be used in the classroom on their Schools Corner.
Please visit: http://www.statistics.govt.nz/methods_and_services/schools_corner.aspx
Statistics NZ provides advice and funding to the CensusAtSchool project.
About one in five students is carting a school bag weighing 5kg or more — the same as a bag of potatoes.
The insight comes from the first 1000 students to complete the online CensusAtSchool 2009, which opened on Tuesday March 3 and runs all term. The figures would seem to back recent chiropractor concern that some young people carry heavy bags all day, risking chronic shoulder, neck and back pain.
An estimated 50,000 students aged between 10 and 18 (Year 5 to Year 13) are due to answer 35 questions about their lives in CensusAtSchool 2009. Teachers administer the 15-minute survey, available in English and Māori, in class. “The project aims to raise students’ interest in statistics as well as provide a snapshot of what they are thinking, feeling and doing,” says co-director Rachel Cunliffe, a statistics lecturer in the University of Auckland’s Department of Statistics.
In other sneak-peek results, 65% of participants said they had played online games in the week before they completed the census. Half downloaded or listened to music on line, and half downloaded or watched online videos such as YouTube, TV shows and movies. Other activities on the internet included keeping in touch with friends (58%) and school work (56%).
Young people proved themselves at ease in the online world, but it seems that the love affair with social networking site Bebo might be waning — among the first 1000 respondents, 35% had their own Bebo page, down from 48% in the last CensusAtSchool in 2007. Personal Skype access at home tallied 30%, a Facebook page 13% and a MySpace page 11%.
And if they could have super powers, girls would choose telepathy (28%) and boys the ability to travel in time (37%).
CensusAtSchool 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 and South Africa.
What are Kiwi kids’ favourite subjects? How much do their laden schoolbags weigh? And which super-powers, such as invisibility and telepathy, would they choose if they could?
An estimated 50,000 students aged between 10 and 18 (Year 5 to Year 13) are due to start answering these questions – and a host of others about their lives – as the online CensusAtSchool 2009 begins.
Their teachers will be administering the 15-minute census in class between next Tuesday, March 3, and the last day of term one, Thursday April 9. The 35-question survey, available in English and Māori, aims to raise students’ interest in mathematics and statistics as well as provide a fascinating sketch of what they are thinking, feeling and doing.
“It’s about making numbers practical, fun and relevant to young people,” says co-director Rachel Cunliffe, a statistics lecturer at the University of Auckland’s Department of Statistics. “We are encouraging them to be data detectives and explore the uses of numbers.”
One question asks students to measure their popliteal length – that’s the measurement from the back of the knee, when seated, to the floor. Another invites them to click on a button to measure their reaction time. Students submitted four of the survey’s questions, with one of those asking about favourite online activities.
CensusAtSchool proved enormously popular with teachers and students in 2003, 2005 and 2007, says Rachel Cunliffe. “Students tell us over and over that they love the results. They love to know about other students.”
CensusAtSchool 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 and South Africa.
“CensusAtSchool is about real-world learning in a way that is compelling and exciting for students,” says Mary Chamberlain, the Ministry of Education’s Group Manager, Curriculum Teaching and Learning. “It not only teaches them how to measure the world around them and why statistics are important, it offers interesting snapshots of their lives.”
ends
– Further information and a list of schools taking part in CensusAtSchool New Zealand 2009 is available at http://www.censusatschool.org.nz/
– Rachel Cunliffe, CensusAtSchool co-director and spokesperson, is available on 373
7599 ext 89622. This number transfers to Rachel’s mobile phone if she is not in the office. Her email is rachel@stat.auckland.ac.nz
Rachel Cunliffe, a statistics lecturer at the University of Auckland, also lectures and speaks about online communications and youth culture. Rachel and her husband Regan are behind the popular New Zealand TV-watchers’ website Throng. Rachel has been researching the use of instant messaging in educational settings.
A copyright-free portrait of Rachel Cunliffe for media use is available here.
Workshop Theme: “Data Handling and Chance Activities that Promote Citizens’ awareness of data handling and chance”
Statement of Purpose:
To provide an opportunity for participants to:
The first international statistical literacy competition is now open for students aged 10-18. Teachers may register their students now and find out more information at the competition’s website:
From mid-August to the end of September 25,048 students from 505 schools – almost one in five schools in New Zealand – took part in the survey. Here are some summary tables…
Today six new activities, suitable to be used immediately in class, have been released on the CensusAtSchool New Zealand website.
These activities, some developed by internationally renowned statistics education researcher Maxine Pfannkuch, have already been trialled in classrooms.
They are:
All resources clearly follow the Statistical Investigation cycle which is part of the new Mathematics and Statistics curriculum and illustrated on the Data Detective Poster.
