The two parts of this activity (family language and family origins) may need to be done on different days. Although the languages spoken at home will be well known, students might need to discuss family origins with parents and grandparents.
You can download the Family languages and origins: Student worksheet.
What languages other than English are spoken at home?
Facilitate a class discussion on what languages other than English might be spoken at home. Ask the students to decide the best way to collect and record the data.
Students can then create a pie graph of the data. Encourage students to write a short paragraph about their findings to share with the class.
How does our class data on languages compare to the data from the 2011 Australian census?
You may need to explain that a census covers an entire population, which means that in 2011 every person in Australia was surveyed. Lead a class discussion on the difficulties of conducting a census in our country.
Students use census data to construct a pie graph of the five most common languages other than English and compare to the class data. They can then construct a pie graph of the five most common languages including English, which leads to a discussion of the category of ‘other’ and what languages it might contain.
Where do our families come from?
Collect the data from the class and record in a suitable form.
Ask students to construct a fraction bar graph. There are some instructions in the teacher notes as well as on the student worksheet. Encourage students to write a short paragraph about their findings to share with the class.
How does our class data on family origins compare to the data from the 2011 Australian census?
Students use census data to construct a bar graph showing the ancestry of the Australian population. They can then construct a fraction bar graph to show how this would look if their class had the same ancestry, and make comparisons.
The fraction bar graph can now be turned into a pie graph!
You can download the Family origins and languages: Teacher notes notes which also contain additional information.
Australian Curriculum links
Year 5
Pose questions and collect categorical or numerical data by observation or survey
(ACMSP118)
Construct displays, including column graphs, dot plots and tables, appropriate for data type, with and without the use of digital technologies (ACMSP119)
Describe and interpret different data sets in context (ACMSP120)
