4 – Data for action

• Identify the steps of the investigative cycle
• Identify the data needed to answer questions that you will define
• Create a data capture form

• data
• PPDAC

• insight
• data capture

• investigative cycle
• data source

In the last lesson, we learnt about a framework that we can follow when posing and solving real-world problems using data.

Use the starter worksheet to:

• Put the steps into the correct order
• Match the descriptions with the steps

DOWNLOAD Starter WORKSHEET

Almost 48% of people admit to dropping litter.

The amount of litter dropped each year in the UK has increased by a massive 500 percent since the 1960s.

Seven out of every ten items of litter is food packaging.

Around 122 tons of cigarette butts and cigarette-related litter are dropped every day across the UK.

1.3 million pieces of rubbish are dropped on UK roads every weekend. A third of motorists admit to littering while they are driving.

The litter at Disneyland

• How did Walt Disney narrow down the larger problem into a more specific question? What was that question?
• What was the outcome?
• Did it solve the problem?

“Walt Disney wanted to know just how long a park patron would go with trash in their hand before just letting it drop to the ground. So he sat on a bench and watched the visitors of his park, counting the steps of those looking for a place to throw out their garbage. He counted 30 steps on average, and that is still the distance between each trash can in Disney, further ensuring a clean experience.”

thedailymeal.com

Your school, your community

Your school is part of your community.

How can we use data to help us improve our school community by reducing our waste and recycling as much as we can?

What questions do we need answers to, in order to help us solve this problem?

Write down two questions in the worksheet.

DOWNLOAD L4 – Litter Bugs WORKSHEET

At the planning stage, we need to think first about what we predict the answers to our questions will be.

Complete Task 2 on your worksheet.

The next part of your plan involves thinking about the data.

We don’t have a data set to analyse, so we will need to collect the data ourselves.

What data could we collect about the litter that we find?

Complete Task 3 on your worksheet.

Ideas for data to collect

• Type of litter
  • Food waste
  • Food packaging
  • Stationery
• Day/time of day
• Material

• Quantity of litter at location
• Location where litter was dropped
• Distance from bin
• Is it recyclable?
  • What category is it?
  • Is it recycled locally?

Ideas for data to collect

Now that we have decided what data to collect, we need to consider how we will collect and store it.

As we are going to collect this data ourselves, how should we go about it?

Hint: To help with this, you should also consider what you might want to do with the data after collection.

You should use Microsoft Excel to collect the data.

Collecting the data

Your homework is to collect the data.

Your spreadsheet should include a minimum of 20 entries.

Make sure that you collect the data at different times in the school day (before school, at break time, at lunchtime) and in different locations.

Do not pick up litter without appropriate protection.

In this lesson, you…

Identified a problem that could be solved by using data

Planned what data you are going to collect to help you answer questions

Decided on a method of data collection

Next lesson, you will…

Enter your data into your spreadsheets/forms

Upload the data in order to analyse your findings

• Complete the Starter Activity and upload the worksheet to Bourne to Learn.

• Complete the Litter Bugs Worksheet and upload it to Bourne to Learn.

• Complete your data collection form and upload a screenshot of it to Bourne to Learn.