​What are statistics?

​Statistics are pieces of information in the form of numbers.

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​They help us to understand how common certain things are (like the number of people in NSW), or find patterns connecting different things (like do suburbs with more parks have healthier residents?)

​What are statistics useful for?

​Statistics can provide us with information about a large number of things (like people, houses, jobs, etc) that we are interested in.

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​This is important because making judgements about a whole group based on our personal experience isn't very reliable.

​What are statistics useful for?

​For example, we may want to answer the question:

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​"Which suburb in Sydney would be the best place to provide English language classes for migrants?"

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​How would we answer this question?

​How do we answer the question?

​The best place to provide a service (like providing English language classes for migrants) is where there is the most need (the most migrants).

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​So we need to find out where the most migrants live.

​What are statistics useful for?

The problem with relying on our personal experience is that we don't see the big picture. We might know migrants in Panania because most people our family knows are migrants, but we don't know much about the other 10,000 people who live nearby.

​What are statistics useful for?

Another problem is that we don't know enough about the number of migrants in other suburbs to compare them.

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​Maybe other suburbs have many more migrants than Panania, but we haven't actually been to those other suburbs to find out.

​What are statistics useful for?

Luckily, the government collects this sort of information every four years, during a big survey called the census.

​They use the information for just the same the purpose as we do: to help them provide services for people, based on the needs of those people.

What are statistics useful for?

​​On the next page there is an interactive choropleth map, which colour codes the suburbs of Sydney according to a variety of different variables (categories).

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Click the drop-down menu on the top, and choose 'percent born overseas', as shown in the picture.

​Find the three suburbs with the highest proportion of people born overseas. These would be good places to provide your English language service.

​What are statistics useful for?

​Now that we know where the highest percentage of migrants live, it would be good to know which language they speak there.

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​The next slide contains this information. Find out which language (other than English) is most spoken in Auburn.

Variables

​When we want to use statistics to answer questions, like "where should we provide English language classes?", we focus on a particular variable that will help us to answer it. Variables are basically anything that varies (changes) and can be measured or classified, like age, gender, income, or language spoken at home.

​Variables exercise 1

The median age is the middle age of all the people in the suburb. In other words, the age of the person who has half of the people older in the suburb older than them, and half of all people younger than them.

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By looking at this variable, we should be able to find the best location for building a meeting place for older people.

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​​On the next webpage, find the suburb with the highest median age.

​Variables exercise 2

Using the same website as before, (on the next slide) find the suburb with the lowest Median Household income. This would be a good place to set up a service to give people better job skills, so they could earn more.