Students will examine and interpret a population chart published in 1898 — depicting changes in the makeup of the United States across time in three categories, “foreign stock,” “native stock,” and “colored” — as well as an 1893 political cartoon about immigration. Students will also explain the causes and effects of population change in the late 19th century.

Students will use the Census Business Builder: Small Business Edition data access tool to gather and analyze information that entrepreneurs may consider when opening a business. This introductory activity assumes that students have limited experience using data access tools.

Students will look at data showing how the “millennial” generation differs from other generations. They will analyze and evaluate social changes evident in the data. Then they will work with a partner to compose a newsletter.

Students will explore maps containing census data from 1950 through 2000. They will analyze how education levels and median household incomes have changed over time and determine how the two might be correlated. Students will also come up with ideas for policies that could help address issues related to income and education.

Students will read an informational text about variations in college completion rates for people born in different years. To help students better understand the text, the teacher will model how to annotate the first half. Students will then annotate the second half themselves. After that, students will answer a series of questions about the text, drawing inferences from what they’ve read and citing textual evidence to support their responses.

Students will examine a table of 1850 Census data on employment to understand the professions of free men across the United States at the time, calculating the percentages working in different industries. Students will also compare and contrast economies in the North and South during the Antebellum Period.

Students will use state and regional unemployment data for various education levels to create scatter plots and calculate correlation coefficients. Students will then compare scatter plots with different strengths of linear relationships and will determine the impact of any influential points on the correlation coefficient.

Students will use images, U.S. Census Bureau data, and interactive maps to visualize and calculate arithmetic (population), agricultural, and physiological densities at local, regional, and national scales. They will also transfer their calculations to bar graphs.

Teachers will engage students in a discussion about what the Census Bureau does and what types of information it collects. Then students will read and annotate informational texts from the Census Bureau and work with a partner to answer questions about the texts. Students will also analyze an infographic of people with different professions to determine how each of those people might use the data gathered by the Census Bureau; students will be asked to use evidence from the infographic text to support their answers. Students will then complete a wireframe (similar to a graphic organizer) for an online resource about how census data can help their own community.

Students will analyze a variety of county-level census data, including on employment, technology, and transportation, in histograms to compare and contrast the shapes of their distributions and to interpret measures of center and spread in context.

Students will learn about their state as they collect and organize business information using State Facts for Students, a U.S. Census Bureau data tool. Students have the opportunity to examine data about kids their age, as well as a variety of other facts selected to appeal to young students. Students will create a bar graph to represent how the numbers of selected business types have changed between 2010 and 2016.

Students will calculate various measures of central tendency using data on the number of people who bike to work in select states. Students will then create a box plot to represent the data set and answer conceptual questions about the impact of the data set’s outlier.

Students will compare data for two states using comparison symbols and both rounded and unrounded (exact) numbers. Students will then write their own question to compare the data.

Students will learn about the nature and importance of qualitative research as a complement to numerical data — specifically how sociologists use in-depth ethnographic research to study specific places and groups. After students investigate census data on the demographics of their school’s ZIP code, they will observe a location at their school (e.g., a student center or cafeteria). Students will record their notes, understanding the importance of reflexivity in field research. Then they will write a short paper about their field study.

Students will create box plots to make inferences about the percentages of people who walk to work in cities of different population sizes (small, medium, and large). Students will use these findings to write a short report.

Students will develop, justify, and evaluate conjectures about the relationship between two quantitative variables over time in the United States: the median age (in years) when women first marry and the percentage of women aged 25–34 with a bachelor’s degree or higher. Students will write a regression equation for the data, interpret in context the linear model’s slope and y-intercept, and find the correlation coefficient (r), assessing the strength of the linear relationship and whether a significant relationship exists between the variables. Students will then summarize their conclusions and consider whether correlation implies causation.

Students will analyze and compare census data on the education levels of African-Americans in 1850 and in 1880. Students will also discuss how historical events can affect data.

Students will examine how human actions and population changes can affect the environment. Students will examine a series of photographs that compare famous landmarks (Times Square, the Saltair Pavilion in Utah, Laguna Beach, and Niagara Falls) across time, and then they will identify human-generated changes in the physical environment, such as the addition of bridges and roads. Students will also examine U.S. Census Bureau population and housing data to see how population changes can contribute to changes in the physical environment. In addition, students will describe the impact of these changes on the environment.

Students will examine historical photographs and a data table related to 19th-century industrialization and child labor. They will observe and analyze the primary sources and ask questions. This activity could be used near the beginning of a unit on industrialization or the Progressives.

Students will explore the sampling variability in sample percentages of states and the District of Columbia where people aged 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree in 2014, to determine values over 30 percent.