Understanding Society has been working with Futurum Careers to develop a lesson plan and activities for school students aged 14-19. The resource introduces students to the basics of quantitative social science data, through the work of Understanding Society, and encourages students to think about the challenges of collecting and using longitudinal data.
The lesson plan also features the career paths of two of the Understanding Society team – Dr Alita Nandi, Associate Director for Outreach, and Nicole James, Survey Data Officer and ISER PhD student. They highlight the different routes they have taken in to working with social science data and the skills that are useful for working in a study like Understanding Society. The lesson also reflects on the individual research that Alita and Nicole do and how their work impacts on the wider world.
The pack of resources includes an article explaining Understanding Society and the work of Alita and Nicole, an activity sheet which provides talking points to prompt students to reflect on the research and challenge them to devise their own longitudinal survey, and a powerpoint to help structure the lesson and give further discussion questions. The lesson plan links to KS4 and KS5 Social Science, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science and Maths. It can also be used as a careers resource.
The teaching material is free and can be downloaded from the Futurum Careers website or from the tes teaching resources area.
The teaching resource was produced with Futurum, a magazine and online platform aimed at inspiring young people to follow a career in the sciences, research and technology. For more information, teaching resources, and course and career guides, go to the Futurum website, www.futurumcareers.com
EducationYoung people
