Teacher notes

• Encourage students to choose survey topics that interest them. Brainstorming some ideas, perhaps using the Getting started activity on page 309 of the Student Resource Book, might help.
  
  You could ask students to do one of these.
  • Write a list of things that interest you.
  • Write a list of events happening in the school.
  • Write a list of something that you would like to improve in your school.

• You could give students some survey topics that relate to another subject such as science or social studies.
• You could give students the opportunity to work in groups to carry out the Enquiry Cycle. This could make keeping track and supporting a variety of enquiries on a range of topics at one time more manageable. The survey could also be incorporated into a current topic in another curriculum area or into a real school event.
• Check that all students’ survey topics are suitable before they begin and that the outcomes can be graphed using one of the graphs that they are familiar with.
• Encourage students to look for patterns, clusters and trends and to look at the overall shape of the graph when analysing their data.
• Encourage students to make suitable conclusions that relate to the original question.
• Ideas for survey topics
  • Analysing food at the tuck shop.
    If there is not one, collect data to investigate starting a tuck shop.
  • Sports or music equipment availability or use in the school.
  • Books or resources in the library.
  • Car parking or drop off space at the school.
  • Playground equipment or options for improvement.
  • The school swimming pool and lunchtime swimming.
  • Lunchtime clubs.