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Introductory techniques
Students start by using the questioning grid adapted from the one described on Pearson here to identify the possible questions that could be asked in an environment, such as a local green space or park. This could be done from a photograph if necessary.
| Is / Are | Did | Can | Would | Will | Might | |
| Who… | ||||||
| What… | ||||||
| Where… | ||||||
| When… | ||||||
| How… | ||||||
| Why… |
Students write questions in each box they can sensibly fill in, then through discussion can identify:
- Which are the best questions and why?
- Which are the worst and why?
- Which would be easiest to find an answer to?
- Which are the most useful for finding out about this place?
This is an opportunity to get students to think about how we form questions, what good questions look like and what type of questions generate usable data. This kind of starter activity could be used in preparation for designing a simple questionnaire. If you use a photo or Google Street View of a local park for example, the grid might, with some refinement, result in these kinds of questions:
- What might attract people to visit this place?
- Who is using this place?
- Who is NOT using this place?
This could form the basis for thinking about what the students might ask the public to help answer their enquiry questions. A series of sample questions can be shared with the students for them to evaluate how useful and appropriate they are, with a mix of options, some of which are not useful, some not appropriate, and some useful and appropriate to allow justification of their validity.
Example: Do students from {insert school name} school like peanut butter?
| Question | Valid / Useful | Appropriate |
| 1. What is your favourite sandwich filling? | N | Y |
| 2. On a scale of 1-5 (one being gross and 5 being YUM!) how much do you like peanut butter? |
Y |
Y |
| 3. Are you allergic to anything? | N | N |
| 4. Did you have peanut butter sandwiches today? |
Y |
N |
Using a perception check
Pupils could be challenged to complete a perception check with members of the public as a simple questionnaire to gather answers about their own key questions. Perception checks can be complex, but a simple way of gathering information is to ask the participants to describe the area in three words.
This could help answer the first key question: What might attract people to visit this place? In order to answer the second and third key questions around who is and is not using the space, the questionnaire should also gather data about the demographic of the people they question.
Considerations
- Where might be the best place to ask these questions within the space?
- Will the time of day / day of week / season / weather affect the data collection or responses?
- How can we best ensure people give three descriptive words, rather than just all their opinions? Students might need to specify adjectives or describing words.
- Who should be asked? Try to get a range of people; young, old, families, people doing different activities such as walking, walking a dog, playing in the park, relaxing on a bench. The more varied the responses the more representative our data.
Data presentation
Simple graphs of demographic data can be used. When looking at perception data, if three words have been collected from multiple people then a word cloud or word salad is a good data presentation technique.
This link will generate a word cloud Geography Word cloud – Word cloud – WordItOut or students can devise their own. The more times a word is repeated the larger its representation in the word cloud.
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