Lesson summary
In this lesson, students will consider what they know about homelessness through a Colour–Symbol–Feeling thinking routine and then further develop their understanding of homelessness by watching ‘Emma’s Story‘ from the Life After The Oasis documentary. Students will then investigate homelessness statistics from different demographics in Australia including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, youth, older persons and people with a disability. They will calculate the mean, median and frequencies and describe the data using the shape of histograms, they have created both individually and in small groups.
Learning intentions:
Students will...
- be able to determine population means and medians.
- be able to compare means, medians and ranges of two sets of numerical data which have been displayed using histograms.
- understand how statistics and data are one way of highlighting and understanding the complexities of a social issue such as homelessness.
Success criteria:
Students can...
- determine population means and medians
- compare means, medians and ranges of two sets of numerical data
- research effectively to find useful statistical information
- create and evaluate homelessness statistics for a particular demographic using histograms.
Lesson guides and printables
Lesson details
Curriculum mapping
Australian curriculum content descriptions:
Years 9 Mathematics:
- Construct back-to-back stem-and-leaf plots and histograms and describe data, using terms including ‘skewed’, ‘symmetric’ and ‘bi modal’ (ACMSP282) (Stem-and-leaf plots not included in this lesson)
- Compare data displays using mean, median and range to describe and interpret numerical data sets in terms of location (centre) and spread (ACMSP283)
Syllabus outcomes: MA5.1-1WM, MA5.1-2WM, MA5.3-4NA, MA5.1-12SP.
General capabilities: Numeracy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding, Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Relevant parts of Year 9 achievement standards: Students make sense of the position of the mean and median in skewed, symmetric and bi-modal displays to describe and interpret data.
Unit of work: Life After The Oasis – Mathematics.
Time required: 100 mins
Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – support students to access and manipulate data cubes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Resources required
- Student Worksheets – one copy per student
- Device capable of presenting a video to the class.
- Means And Medians Factsheet (optional). What Is Homelessness? Factsheet – to be projected or a copy provided for each student
- Histogram Factsheet – to be projected or a copy provided for each student
- Handling Sensitive Topics And Controversial Issues Factsheet (Optional)
Additional info
This resource has been adapted from ‘Teaching Social Issues Through English’ developed with the English Teachers Association NSW and the ‘Youth Homelessness Matters Resource’ developed by Janice Atkin. You can find these resources here.
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