Tomorrow (April 22) is Earth Day. Here are some ideas for how to incorporate this into your classroom:

• What sorts of insects are common in the grass areas of our school? Survey Your Environment – PPDAC cycle (Years 1–3)
• How are students’ travel methods to school changing over time? We have the data going back to 2005! Interestingly, car usage has remained flat at 40%. The real shift is happening elsewhere: walking has dropped from 26% to 21%, while bus usage has grown from 23% to 28%. You could also explore travel time to school.
• How are students’ opinions about climate change/global warming changing over time? Explore CensusAtSchool data. We have the data going back to 2005!

Our World in Data

Publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems: Poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality. For example, did you know that oil spills from tankers have fallen by more than 90% since the 1970s? And deforestation is no longer inevitable?

GapMinder

Gapminder is an independent educational non-profit fighting global misconceptions. See how people really live around the world. And how well do you know New Zealand stats?

Figure.NZ 

Figure.NZ’s mission is to get the people of New Zealand using data to thrive. Figure.NZ helps everyone understand the things they care about, so they can make great choices.

Kaggle

Register for free to access over 50,000 datasets. Popular datasets include Trending YouTube Videos, Time Spent Streaming Music, and Starbucks Orders.

Data.govt.nz

New Zealand Government project with almost 30,000 datasets. There are many similar open data repositories, e.g., Australia, Europe, OECD, UK, USA, and the World Bank.

TidyTuesday Datasets

Explore datasets from the TidyTuesday project. The older datasets tend to have Excel or csv files.

Litter Intelligence

Explore New Zealand litter data. Led by New Zealand charity Sustainable Coastlines, the programme works in close collaboration with the Ministry for the Environment, Department of Conservation and Statistics New Zealand.

Motor Vehicle Database

This database contains all currently registered vehicles and is updated monthly.

Google’s Dataset Search Engine 

This tool aims to foster a data-sharing ecosystem that encourages data publishers to follow best practices for data storage and publication and gives scientists a way to demonstrate the impact of their work by citing the datasets they have produced.

It was wonderful seeing so many teachers at last year’s Statistics Teachers’ Day in Auckland. Planning is already underway for this year’s event!

Later this year, we’ll let you know the overarching theme and put out a call for workshops and talks.

In the meantime, save the date:

Statistics Teachers’ Day 2026
Friday November 27

The 2025-2026 CensusAtSchool questionnaire is open! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved. We’d love for you to take part with your students.

Register, take part, and get the data

Other Upcoming Events

PMA Seminar Day, Auckland, March 7, 2026

Mark your calendars! The Primary Mathematics Association’s Seminar Day is back on Saturday, 7 March 2026, at the Waipuna Conference Centre. This year’s theme, “Enhancing & Enriching,” focuses on marrying proven classroom “gold” with the refreshed curriculum.

Dr Vince Wright’s keynote session, Implementing a ‘knowledge-rich’ mathematics curriculum, will dive into the new Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum, exploring how to help students not just “know” maths, but “know why” it works and “know when” to apply it.

It is a fantastic local opportunity to get practical guidance on the revised curriculum and connect with fellow Auckland educators.

View the programme and register now

ICOTS 12, Brisbane, July 12–17, 2026

A world-class professional development opportunity is coming to our doorstep. Brisbane is hosting the 12th International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS), the first time this huge event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Centered on the theme “What? Who? When? How?”, the conference features global experts from Duke, Oxford, and UCLA. Sessions are designed specifically for school-level educators to explore new strategies in assessment and data science. It is a rare chance to bring the latest global trends in data literacy directly back to your New Zealand classroom.

Learn more and register here

Teaching Resource

Pachinkogram

A great visualisation of conditional probabilities. Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

The 2025-2026 Census is open! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved.

Register, prepare, take part, and explore the data

Upcoming Events

PMA Seminar Day, Auckland, March 7, 2026

Mark your calendars! The Primary Mathematics Association’s Seminar Day is back on Saturday, 7 March 2026, at the Waipuna Conference Centre. This year’s theme, “Enhancing & Enriching,” focuses on marrying proven classroom “gold” with the refreshed curriculum.

Dr Vince Wright’s keynote session, Implementing a ‘knowledge-rich’ mathematics curriculum, will dive into the new Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum, exploring how to help students not just “know” maths, but “know why” it works and “know when” to apply it.

It is a fantastic local opportunity to get practical guidance on the revised curriculum and connect with fellow educators.

View the programme and register now

ICOTS 12, Brisbane, July 12–17, 2026

A world-class professional development opportunity is coming to our doorstep. Brisbane is hosting the 12th International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS), the first time this huge event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Centered on the theme “What? Who? When? How?”, the conference features global experts from Duke, Oxford, and UCLA. Sessions are designed specifically for school-level educators to explore new strategies in assessment and data science. It is a rare chance to bring the latest global trends in data literacy directly back to your New Zealand classroom.

Learn more and register here

Teaching Resource

Pin Number Analysis

A deep dive into what people choose as their pin numbers. Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

The 2025-2026 Census has officially reopened! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved.

Visit our website to register, prepare, take part, and explore the data

Teaching Resources

NEW: Year 4–6 Data Cards

We’ve created CensusAtSchool data cards for Year 4–6 students to go with the sets for Year 1–3 students.

Top NZ Baby Names: Noah & Isla

Explore the new rankings alongside historic datasets to see how Kiwi names have evolved. Perfect for a classroom discussion as everyone is learning new names. (See also: Interactive baby name graph for the US.)

The Evolution of Trust Game 

Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

Welcome back! We hope you return refreshed and energised for the new school year.

For those who missed last year’s Statistics Teachers’ Day, Michael Walden’s keynote, Integrating Technology in the Statistics Classroom, is now available on YouTube. In it, Michael shares ten fantastic web-based resources to transform your teaching.

Spoiler alert: His top-rated resource is The Pudding, which features incredible visualisations like Human Terrain, a 3D look at the world’s population. Here is a snippet of New Zealand in 3D:

Want more ideas?

• Explore more workshop resources from the Statistics Teachers’ Day here.
• Get your students involved in real-world data by voting now for New Zealand’s Bug of the Year 2026. It’s a fantastic context for data collection and discussion. But hurry, voting closes on February 16.

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

“We had great discussions. It is making statistics seem relevant and exciting for them. I feel really lucky I came across your site and will definitely be using it again in future years, and recommending it to other teachers.” – Paula McLeod (Rototuna Primary)

“I loved the relative ease of implementation and that it condenses so much statistics learning into one fun event. [The teacher guide is] excellent! Spells out everything, providing all the guidance and resources needed for smooth implementation. Bravo! (Must have been designed by a teacher).” – Maria Higgison (Our Lady of Kapiti School)

“We had a fabulous time completing the measurement tasks for Census at School! Extremely professional resources and thought that went into the questions.” – Jess Jackman (St Bernadette’s Hornby)

“It was a great task for the students to do, as it is something that applies to real life. It was a great way of including statistics in our learning and recapping what they mean. The whole process was simple and easy for the teacher as well as easily accessible for the students.” – Becky Holmes (Carterton School)

“[We enjoyed] the connection we were making to the database and the links with the associated explorations we will be undertaking for assessment purposes. The method and clear instructions are particularly helpful in discussing minimising sources of variation, and we have made strong connections to their experiment work in Science.” – Louise Lane (Waitaki Girls High)

“They enjoyed the funny questions towards the end. So great to have some new questions that aren’t the same run-of-the-mill ones we as teachers always use.” – Lee Mann (Scots College)

“I loved the fact they were asking how to measure the weight of their bag… what is a circumference. There were some lovely discussions.” – Farhanah Jeewa (AGGS)

We are looking forward to providing you with more resources and support for teaching Statistics next year. The survey will close over the summer break from December 20 and reopen on January 26. It will remain open throughout the 2026 school year.

***

Thanks to Paula McLeod from Rototuna Primary School for sending in these photos of tamariki taking part earlier this year. 

Wahanga | Chapter 2
Tracing the threads of chance: Historical insights for teaching probability
by Sibel Kazak and Robin Averill

Wahanga | Chapter 7 [Note: DRAFT]
Digital tools: Harnessing technology for probability explorations and analysis Y1-11
by Chris Wild