Broadening perspectives
It is human nature to see situations very much from one's own perspective, and young people are no exception. Using data from different countries provides a starting point for doing this and can, at the same time, help to build pupils' data-handling skills.
Comparisons with the world population on average are ideal starting points and can help to build their data-handling skills.
Go to the Activity on the right to try some data-handling activities.
Activity Resources:
- Images
- Interactive
- Sound
- Text
- Video
Activity
- Use the WHO Great Expectations video, 'Six babies at six months' (6 mins 39 secs), as a stimulus to start discussing differences between different country statistics and the possible reasons behind them. World Health Organisation Great Expectations
- With colleagues or pupils, discuss the possible reasons behind the current pictures and how science may help improve survival rates etc. in the future.
- When working with older pupils, you may wish to link your discussions with the Millennium Development Goals on child mortality, and progress towards them. Click on the link below and browse through the Millennium Development Project Reports located under the 'Documents' button. Look for 'Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality'.
- An alternative data-handling activity looks at comparative energy use between different countries worldwide. Data is provided from the International Energy Agency: Key World Energy Statistics 2004Useful pages are:
- page 32 Consumption by regions;
- page 45 Emissions by region;
- pages 48-57 Energy indicators by region and country.
- You can use this energy data with pupils to discuss reasons for the current world energy picture. Pupils can also be encouraged to explore the future projections for energy use across the world, and the social, political, environmental and economic impacts this may have.
- To develop pupils' ICT, as well as data-handling skills, ask them to select data from different countries and put it into a spreadsheet (such as Excel) to show comparative patterns and trends.
