Statistical approaches to international development: a teaching toolkit

Teachers are increasingly keen to explore global challenges in the classroom. However, there are few high-quality resources that allow teachers and students to manipulate and understand development data. This is crucial for forming fully critical perspectives on development.

In this collaborative project, Think Global and Oxfam created a toolkit for maths and geography teachers in secondary schools, known as ‘Bringing Data to Life’. The toolkit uses real development data and aims to support teachers and students to engage with international development and issues of female empowerment.

Through a Women’s Collective Action project, Oxfam have been supporting women in Ethiopia and Mali to produce and sell honey and shea butter. This toolkit brings the experience of these working women into the classroom and gets students to measure the impact of the project by interrogating real-life data gathered in the field. The toolkit includes session plans, PowerPoints and worksheets in both English and Welsh. The resources are designed for Key Stage 3 and 4 (ages 11 to 16) and include geography and maths links across the English, Welsh and Scottish curricula. They can be used in maths and geography classrooms, or in collaborative activities across the two subjects.

The project team worked closely with expert statisticians from Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI), as well as teachers, to ensure the toolkit is curriculum-relevant, statistically accurate and easy to use. The toolkit was developed and tested with the help of practising teachers and trialled in UK schools.

The toolkit can be downloaded free of charge from both the Global Dimension website and Oxfam’s website.