Teachers are finding out how easily they can incorporate free Canadian statistics into their classrooms. " This is the quintessential Canadian data site. It includes all you will ever want and probably more of the latest information," proclaims the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education in their online review of www. statcan.ca. "Most of what educators want is free."

Tools designed especially for teachers

Upon exploring the Teaching Resources page (http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/teachers.htm), teachers discover dozens of useful teaching aids and ideas on how to involve students in current issues facing the country. The site is easy to navigate: you can find lesson plans by course level and subject area, browse for information by theme, download recommended publications, and connect to databases of national, provincial and community statistics all without charge.

The lesson plans (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/teach.htm), created by teachers for teachers, provide numerous classroom activities that demonstrate how to use information available on the site. These lessons are available by level of schooling or by course. Under the category "history and social studies" at http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/cour17.htm there are over 30 lessons. One of these outlines how a class can role-play Jean Talon's first census, inspired by the actual results collected in 1665. Under the course category "personal and social education" (http://dissemination.statcan.ca/english/kits/cour24.htm) there are more than 20 lessons, including a lesson entitled Comparing the Health and Lifestyles of 13 Year-olds Around the World, where students research habits such as smoking, exercise, alcohol abuse and lifestyles from various countries around the world as a stimulus to adopt personal goals that reflect healthy lifestyles. Another activity proposes an analysis of the babysitting job-market based on local community data.

Several teachers' kits (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/kits.htm) provide a range of tools to get the most out of the various Statistics Canada products. For example, the 1996 Census Results Teacher's Kit (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/result.htm) provides activities for different grade levels, including student worksheets, to understand characteristics of the Canadian population.

Interactive support

The site is designed to provide online support, including a Teacher's Discussion Forum and an Ask an Expert section where you can get responses to your questions on specific subjects. You can also find information on funding opportunities for web page projects that use Statistics Canada data. In addition, Statistics Canada now has an education representative in every region across Canada, available to provide free workshops and professional development. See http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/reps-tea.htm for details.

Classroom Resources to check out…

The following classroom resources are of particular interest to social studies teachers and are available free on the Statistics Canada Education Resources site:

Most Canadians today live in urban areas. Yet, sprinkled throughout the country are countless small, rural communities constantly changing, growing and adapting. Statistical Profile of Canadian Communities, (http://ceps.statcan.ca/english/profil/PlaceSearchForm1.cfm) takes a virtual look at more than 6,000 Canadian cities, towns, villages and Aboriginal communities, with facts about population, education, income, work, families, dwellings, births and deaths.

Tapping into community numbers is simple. Young people really enjoy using the dynamic mapping feature to zoom in on a bird's eye view of their community and its surroundings. And it's possible to see your community in perspective, by comparing its figures to provincial and national counts.

Teachers can go a step further and challenge their students to create a web page using Statistics Canada information about their community. They can even apply for funding to do it, through Statistics Canada's Profiling Canada initiative!

Profiling Canada is a national program that supports elementary and secondary schools in developing web pages about Canadian communities and regions, using Statistics Canada's on-line information. Natural Resources Canada is a partner on this through their Canadian Communities Atlas Project (http://cgdi.gc.ca/ccatlas/atlas.htm). Profiling Canada is part of Industry Canada's Grassroots Program, which funds a broad range of on-line classroom projects through SchoolNet.

Teachers applying for Profiling Canada projects can receive assistance from the Statistics Canada education representative in their region, who will help them select and analyze the information they need.

E-STAT 2000 : An interactive database for schools - now free on the web

E-STAT (http://www.statcan.ca/english/Estat/estat.htm) is Statistics Canada's comprehensive educational resource available exclusively to Canadian educational institutions.

E-STAT combines 450,000 current social and economic time series, containing data on business, industry, labor, prices, health, crime and many others, as well as data from the 1996 Census and historical censuses. For the plugged-in teacher, E-STAT 2000 offers a host of curriculum-relevant activities developed by educators specifically for Grade 6 and up. Students can watch history unfold as columns of data are easily transformed into maps and graphs to reveal important trends.

The 2000 edition contains two new features that make it even more user-friendly and versatile. Students can now search for data by 25 themes. As well, E-STAT now features short analytical articles to complement the data. Students can access selected articles from Statistics Canada products such as the Canada Year Book 1999 and the magazine Canadian Social Trends.

Social studies teachers can also benefit from Data Sources for Canadian Social Studies Courses (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/introd.htm) available on the Teachers Resources page of the Education Resources site. For each province, teachers can find a list of data sources from
E-STAT specific to the curriculum required for their course subject and grade level.

To obtain free access to E-STAT 2000, schools must register by visiting http://estat.statcan.ca
Teachers can then access E-STAT from home with a user identification and password.

Population pyramids

To understand how the population evolves in a country or province, it's important to analyze its age-sex distribution. These statistics are used by governments to make informed decisions that will affect our lives today and in the future. A population pyramid is a handy way to illustrate the structure of a population: it's a bar graph that shows the number of males and females of various ages. By analyzing population pyramids and how they change over time, we can learn a lot about our society.

Statistics Canada offers online animated population pyramids (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/animat/pyone.htm) that show the change in population distribution between 1971 and 2004, for Canada and the provinces and territories. The moving graphs clearly illustrate the changing structure of the population as it ages. We see the difference between an expanding population, as in Nunavut, and a declining population, as in Newfoundland.

Teachers can also access accompanying lesson plans that allow students to create their own population pyramids using 1996 Census data. Students learn about the ramifications of population aging in their province or territory.

Historical Statistics of Canada

Historical Statistics of Canada (http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectiona/cover.htm), a free publication at www.statcan.ca, provides more than 1,000 statistical tables that chronicle the social, economic and institutional conditions in Canada from 1867 to the mid-1970s.

Using Historical Statistics of Canada, students discover how immigration patterns have ebbed and flowed over the years and where immigrants have come from at different periods. They can also trace the shrinking size of families over the past century, track variations in the price of different goods since 1921, and investigate crime and law enforcement statistics to discover trends.

The fascinating patterns they see in the intricately woven tapestry revealed in Historical Statistics of Canada motivates students to ask more questions about their country's past and its influence on the present. This valuable resource, which was out of print, is now free on the web.

Censuses of Canada from 1665 to 1871

History teachers and students can now access an electronic version of Censuses of Canada, 1665 to 1871, Statistics of Canada, Volume IV (http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/98-187-XIE/free.htm) at Statistics Canada's website. This unique reference volume was first published in 1876, and has been out of print for more than a century. It depicts the growth and development of Canada from the earliest settlements to Confederation and on to 1871, through introductory texts and extensive statistical tables. It is a companion volume to Historical Statistics of Canada, which spans the years from Confederation to the 1970s.

The texts relating to each historical period can be viewed and downloaded directly from the site. The tables, however, can only be opened using E-STAT (http://www.statcan.ca/english/Estat/estat.htm), an interactive research tool for schools now available free of charge. (E-STAT gives access to Statistics Canada's extensive social and economic databases, together with graphing and mapping features.)

Related lesson plans are available on the site. In Role Playing Jean Talon (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/jtalon1.htm), grade 6-9 students interpret tables of data collected in 1665 and 1666 during the first censuses in Canada. These tables are included in the lesson plan, so that E-STAT is not required. Two other lesson plans challenge senior students to analyze history by retrieving data and creating tables and graphs through E-STAT: Analysis of a Colonial Industry, Shipbuilding in Nova Scotia 1861 (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/ship/ship1.htm) and Chinese Immigrants in British Columbia, 1870 (http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/bc70s1.htm).

Stats Can Internet Resources for Canadian Social Studies