Community Mapping: Collecting and Organizing Data from Surveys

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In this project, learners do a survey and create a spreadsheet using the data. Keep in mind that you could also do a survey project just with pen and paper, or you could have the group take photos to illustrate their findings and build a Web page with the results.

This lesson plan covers the entire process, using a survey about how people talk and how people get around in the community. It might help to keep the project simple the first time you try it, involving something you can easily document and limiting the learners to surveying close neighbors or people in their school. Once all the learners have completed the entire project, they can do another survey project following these steps, Goal pursuing their own inquiry-based topics and taking more time to research and present their findings.

Recommended Time: 

If your learners are already familiar with the spreadsheet software, you can probably complete a simple, warm-up version of this project in two 30-minute sessions. If you are still introducing the software, however, plan on working on the various elements of this project for 15 to 30 minutes a day over a week or more. A more extended version of the project with a broader survey base might take longer.

Goals: 
  • Learn about surveys
  • Learn more about the people and other attributes of their community
  • Gather, analyze, and present data
  • Introduce or practice using spreadsheet software
  • Research an inquiry-based project 
Materials and Equipment: 
Oversized pad of paper, 2' x 3' (preferable) or blackboard for mapping, Note Paper, Computers,
Spreadsheet software, Photo-editing software,
Web page-authoring software, Digital Cameras
Preparation (Before You Begin): 

Make sure that you are familiar with any elements you intend to include in this project, such as:

  •  mapping
  •  creating a spreadsheet
  •  digital photography
  •  computer graphics and image editing
  •  creating a Web page

You can use this project to introduce any or all of these topics, or you can introduce them beforehand and use this project to reinforce them. Leave yourself more time for modeling and exploration if your learners are younger or new to any of the software applications.

Activity Steps: 

Finding Ideas
To introduce the concept of surveys, do a mapping activity, starting with writing "survey" in the center. Follow the standard mapping process, asking questions like the following:
What can we survey? (Almost anything can be surveyed: how far people have traveled, people's skills and areas of expertise, community assets, family traditions, etc. In this example, learners will survey the dialects spoken locally and the distances/modes of transportation around the community.)
What can we survey about these topics? (On the topic "community assets," you could ask about the types of public services/spaces, such as schools, libraries, health clinics, and/or the degree that they're used, by whom, etc.)
How can we do the survey? (You could ask people questions, observe them, or take pictures.)

We especially like this survey project as a way for learners to get to know their community. Try doing a survey about something common and having the learners talk to people throughout their neighborhood. The documentation element makes the survey process a more personal experience as well, whether the learners are taking pictures of their interviewees or recording their voices. If you do something like this, be sure to have the learners note whom they interviewed, so that they can show them their work.

STEP 1: Decide what to Survey
The mapping activity should help you lead the group to refine the "what" and the "how" for surveying dialects or languages and movement around the community. Learners should come to agreement on which questions they're asking and/or which observations they need to make as part of their data collection. For example, survey questions might include: Which dialect/language do you speak? Do you know and/or speak any other dialect/language? How far is it to your school or workplace? How do you get there? Where else do you routinely go in your community? How far away is this destination and how do you get there? How often do you encounter people speaking a different language or dialect? How far have you traveled beyond your community?

STEP 2: Conducting the Survey
Using the pair-share process, model interviewing someone and recording their responses. If this kind of documentation will be part of the project, you can also take a photograph or record their voice. Then have each learner interview someone else, practicing note-taking and documentation.The next step is to survey people in the community and bring the findings back to the group.

STEP 3: Organizing the Data
Ask learners to share their findings with the group. Working with one set of findings, model how you can use software (i.e., Microsoft Excel) to create a simple spreadsheet that can turn the numbers into a graphic representation of the results. Give the learners a chance to explore and compare different ways of graphing their data. The individual results should be combined to yield overall findings as well, as long as the lists of survey respondents are compared to avoid duplication.If there are other findings (i.e., observations, audio recordings), you should model how to organize the data into a form that can be presented to the group and other audiences.

STEP 4: Presenting Findings
There are many options for how the findings can be displayed for the group and to the wider community. Ask the learners how they would like to present their work (i.e., poster, Web page, slideshow).

Closing Activity
(Help students process what they have learned and prepare them for the work of the next session.)  Have students write in their journals about conducting this survey. They might reflect on these questions: 1) What did you learn about your community and the people in your community? 2) What did you enjoy about the process of conducting a survey? 3) What did you find hard? 4) What else would you like to survey?

Variations: 

This activity can also be expanded to include photography, photo-editing or Web-authoring skills. The following modifications can be made to this Lesson Plan.

In Step 3

If the learners take photographs, model the following using the pair-share process:
Bringing the pictures from the disk into the computer
Opening the image in PhotoShop or another image-editing program
Resizing the image to a 2-inch square
Saving and naming the image as a JPEG or GIF file
Printing the image
Next, have all the learners do the same thing in pairs at the computers with their own photos.

In Step 4

If the group decides they want to create a Web page for the survey, here's a list of things to help you guide them through the process. You may want to cover other elements as well, but the basics are fine for starters:
Creating a new file
Assigning a background
Adding text
Changing the font, size and color of text
Placing the photos
Creating links

Your sample Web page should contain at least the following, but dress it up more if you like:
Your name
The class name
The topic of the survey (e.g., "Moving and Communicating in our Community")
Photos representing the topics you are surveying, along with the survey results
(Optional) Links to sites with more information about dialects, transportation, and/or travel in your region, along with appropriate text to describe these sources