The United States Census – math and social studies lesson


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The recent Census 2020 provided an opportunity to incorporate math and social studies in order to understand the history of the Census and the importance of participating in the count. In this lesson, connections are made to American history, slavery, voting rights, literacy rates, congressional apportionment, branches of government, and population growth, as well as graph-reading skills and percents.

You should also check out the Change Agent’s articles on the Census, perfect for adult education classrooms.

A 90-minute distance learning lesson was also created in Google Slides and is ready to be taught remotely. It includes a pre-reading activity using a prediction guide, a chart reading activity using notice/wonder, a graph reading activity using true statements, a video on the importance of participating in the Census, and a writing activity summarizing what students have learned. The complete lesson is available here.

Click on the link above to create a copy of the Google Slides lesson.

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The pdf link above is easiest for printing the lesson. The url link above will take you to a Google Doc where you can comment on the lesson, make a copy, download and edit the document, etc.

This version includes corrections to previous versions. We recommend checking CollectEdNY.org regularly to see if there have been version updates.


2 thoughts on “The United States Census – math and social studies lesson”

  1. Which box do I check? (22 minutes) – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/am-i-normal-which-box-do-i-check/id1588732696?i=1000541911278

    This episode from Mona Chalabi’s podcast – Am I Normal? – goes deeper into representations of identity & data.

    We’re constantly checking boxes on forms, whether it’s for eye color or sexual orientation. Those categories can be empowering or, they can make you feel invisible, like when Mona painted a portrait of 100 New Yorkers based on the New York Census data, and realized she couldn’t see herself. There was no “Arabic” box to check in the census—the closest being “white” or “other.” So what happens when someone spends their whole life checking that box for “other”? Mona talks with nonbinary British Iraqi drag queen Amrou Al-Kadhi about embracing the contradictions of having multiple, wonderful, identities, that SOME people see as conflicting.

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