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Census Data for our Schools

By Fiona Shalley, National Education Services Unit, Melbourne

The main role of the ABS' National Educational Services Unit (NESU) is to promote greater understanding, knowledge and access to ABS statistics by teachers, librarians and students in the school sector. Based in the ABS' Victorian office, the NESU continuously explores new ways of distributing information to schools located throughout Australia in the most cost effective way.

STATPAK

STATPAK is a free catalogue of ABS publications and services selected to meet the ongoing needs of librarians and teachers. For the first time this year, STATPAK has been designed as an on-line service and is available via the Education Services pages on the ABS web site. STATPAK ONLINE includes a wide range of ABS statistics and education resources on many social, economic and environmental issues. Schools receive a special discount of 30% on most ABS publications and standard services as long as you attach your order form to your school purchase order.

If your school does not have access to the Internet, contact the NESU and a printed version of STATPAK will be posted to you.

Census KeyData Education Tool Kit

A useful classroom resource is the Census Key Data Education Tool Kit on CD-ROM, which can be obtained free of charge from any ABS Bookshop, or on request from the NESU. The Tool Kit contains all 32 Basic Community Profile (BCP) tables of census data at the Australian level for free, including age by sex, marital status, birthplace, language spoken at home, religion, education qualification and more. More data can also be accessed by purchasing a special decryption code.

Classroom activities

Classroom activities use data on the Tool Kit and provide teachers with lesson plans covering topics such as population trends, ageing and cultural diversity. The exercises and activities are aimed at students from upper primary to year 12 and have relevance to geography, mathematics, societal and environmental studies.

Specialised curriculum material has also been prepared by the NESU with input from secondary school teachers. Four spreadsheet exercises use the Tool Kit to introduce students to BCP data:

• how to find your way around a BCP;
• creating an age by sex table for Australia's youth population;
• producing an Australian map of visitor's usual residence on census night, by sex;
• producing a world map of the birthplace (countries) for all persons.