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What is it?
I have written and spoken many times about the struggles, and more importantly the dangers, of trying to relate all of school mathematics to the real world. However, here is a real-life scenario where a solid understanding of mathematics, and statistics in particular, is incredibly important. The refugee crisis is something that has dominated the news for months, with a wide variety of figures and diagrams being thrown around. Here is an opportunity to bring this into the classroom – allowing students to work with numbers that actually mean something, whilst at the same time making them aware of an incredibly important subject. 

How can it be used?
The three superb worksheets cover Bar Charts, Pie Charts and Proportion. Each contains well thought-out questions that relate to a diagram or a set of figures. Because the worksheets are so well structured, they pretty much run themselves and can be used like any worksheet. However, there is also scope to use these as a lead-in to engage students in the subject matter as a whole. Maybe give 1/3 of the class the Bar Charts, 1/3 Pie Charts and 1/3 Proportion. Get them to complete the worksheets, and then write down what they think are the three most important things that they feel people should know. This could then be shared with the rest of the class to encourage discussion and engagement with the issue.

Thanks for sharing!
Craig Barton

 

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