Blogs What if there were an easy way for any teacher to boost their students’ statistical literacy, better prepare them for a data-driven world, and enhance their learning in many subjects? What if, in the 2019-2020 school year, you also could take advantage of a rare opportunity to shape the future for your students and school for the next 10 years?
Few teachers would pass up that chance. A U.S. Census Bureau program called Statistics in Schools (SIS) provides that opportunity. Our upcoming webinar will more fully explain the best practices for using SIS activities in the classroom, but here’s how SIS works:
- The Census Bureau is the leading source of information on the nation’s people, places, and economy, providing data about our country’s population size and growth and the changing characteristics of our communities.
- Statistics in Schools incorporates that real-world data into free classroom activities that support existing lesson plans and bring school subjects to life.
- Teachers help create and review each classroom activity to make sure it is valuable and engaging.
- You don’t need to be a data expert; all activities include a teacher’s guide and provide the data needed to complete the activity.
- Resources are provided for every grade level—from pre-K through high school—and for subjects such as math, history, geography, sociology, and English.
- New SIS materials for 2020 are designed to educate students and adults in their home about the importance of completing the 2020 Census and counting everyone, including EVERY child. For every grade level, SIS also provides 2020 activities adapted for English language learners.
- The census count impacts the allocation of more than $675 billion in federal funds to communities each year, including funds for special education, classroom technology, teacher training, after-school programs, school lunch assistance, and Head Start.
The opportunity to have this big of an impact won’t come again until the next decennial census, in 2030.
How do you get started? It’s easy! Just visit the SIS website, where you can immediately access and download the materials. We also encourage you to join our one-hour webinar for teachers on Dec. 11, 2019. This webinar will explain more about:
- The free resources SIS provides, including 67 new classroom activities for 2020 and new maps, videos, and pre-K resources.
- Best practices for adapting these activities to your classroom and students’ learning styles.
- How to best use the 2020 activities to encourage a complete count of all children in the 2020 Census.
We’ll spend most of the time using one of our SIS featured activities, Population Change Over Time, to walk you through how SIS makes it easy to use and adapt these activities for your needs.
To learn more about how to use SIS in your classroom, join our webinar:
- Date: Wednesday, December 11, 2019
- Time: 7 to 8 p.m.
- Register for the webinar
