Session 1 · DESIGN: Explore
Out in the field
- 10 minAgree the rules of a fair count: same place, same time, same length, and how to avoid counting the same bird, car or fish twice.
- 30 minCollect: a 10-minute bird count in two places, a gate tally of how people arrive, or counts from three Spyfish video clips.
- 10 minCompare tallies with another group that counted the same thing. Where do they differ, and why?
Session 2 · DESIGN: Sketch
Design the dataset
- 10 minLook at a real dataset such as CensusAtSchool. What are the columns? What does one row stand for?
- 20 minPlan your spreadsheet on paper: column names, the type of data in each (number, text, date, category) and the allowed values.
- 10 minWrite a data dictionary and metadata: who collected it, where, when, how, and what each column means.
- 10 minPrivacy by design: cross out any column that could identify a person. Pūkeko asks one question about what your dataset leaves out.
Getting started
Use the tally sheet template with columns already drawn: time, place, what you saw, how many.
Stretch
Add a column for weather or tide and predict how it might change your counts.
Checkpoint
Raw tally sheets from a fair count, and a paper plan of the dataset with a data dictionary.
Activities for this week
- The fair count: How do you collect data that others can trust?
Useful this week
- Binary numbers ↗ A New Zealand-made set of no-computer activities for learning how binary works.
- Image representation ↗ Learn how pictures become numbers, with pixel and compression activities.
- CensusAtSchool – TataurangaKiTeKura ↗ Real survey data from New Zealand students to explore, clean and chart.
- New Zealand Garden Bird Survey ↗ The method and national results for counting backyard birds, to compare with your own.