Overview of Data Gathering Activities
During the 2001-2002 school year, students from around the
world gathered data on prices and wages in their communities
through a sequence of 5 International Data Collection Activities.
Click here to read a description
of the activities.
Findings from our Investigation: Student-Collected Data
"What do we buy?"
What do students and their families typically buy during
the week in Argentina? In Botswana? In Russia? Check out these
pages to see the students' local shopping lists and the units
of measurement used in each country.
"What does it cost?"
After viewing all the local shopping lists we created a "master
shopping list" with items that were commonly purchased
around the world. Students went through a two step process,
finding the prices for each item in their local currency and
then converting those prices to another currency, to facilitate
the comparison of prices internationally.After you view the
data, click here to read
selected comments from the students.
"What do we earn?" and "The real costs"
In this activity we took the investigation deeper. A TV set
may cost the same in Mexico and the U.S. but the wages in
the two countries are very different. Here students calculate
how long someone would have to work in their country to earn
each item on the master shopping list. First, of course, the
students had to investigate the wages in each country for
different kinds of workers. After you view the data, click
here to read selected comments
from the students.
