Sources of Data for MDM4U Project

Joel Yan (Stats Can) MDM4U page:

(pay particular attention to the sample MDM4U project exemplars to understand the scope and effort required for a good project)

Statistics Canada CANSIM ( accessed in the following way):

From the home page of the Statistics Canada website:

Click on CANSIM on the banner on the right hand side.

need to set up a trial account

MDM4U resources on the BrockUniversity website

Citations using APA format

Some Potential Topics

Tourism in Canada
Modes and Destinations of Travel by Canadians
Scientific Innovation
Employment of men/women in Canada
Movie/Box office popularity
Health Behaviour of school aged children
University and School board funding
Sexual Assault
Causes Of Death / NFL comparisons
Crime Rates
Murder Rates
Teen Pregnancy factors
NHL, NBA scoring statistics
Sources of Pollution and Waste in Canada
Unionization in Canada
Life Expectancy factors
Baseball Statistics / Home Runs Statistics

Some Exemplars

A project completed at Brock University ->

You will not complete every section, and will need to expand your written analysis beyond theirs.

Section 1:Research locations and Internet sites

Most, if not all, of your work will be researched on the internet. This area will be like a descriptive bibliography. It will list internet links, ESTAT links and the number of any tables used, plus sites you visited in your computer research but may not have used much or at all. You should discuss data you wish you had but that was not available to you. You do not have to do a mind map.

Section 2:Analyzing Data Involving One VariableSection 2a, 2c

You will organize the main body of work here as follows …

1.Problem and Plan - indicate the internet addresses and sites you actually used to create your graphs, the data topics you will analyze in this section, and ESTAT table numbers, and those things you wished you could analyze, such as missing years, missing pieces of data.

2. Graphsand Analysis - the number and quality of graphs in the Brock project is good, but their analysis and conclusions are way too brief. Please provide tables and analysis right after each graph instead of waiting to the end of the section. Show any calculations you do right in the project. In Brock Project 2c, they do probability in percentages, and you may include probability graphs in your Section 2. There should be aminimum 3 / maximum 6 graphs per person.

3. Do not include conclusions here. Save them for your Section 4. and

Section 3:Analyzing Data Involving Two VariablesSection 2b

You will notice the authors use Fathom to find the Line of Best Fit and the r value (Correlation Coefficient). Note that Fathom gives you r2, and you must yourself find the value of r. Prepare a minimum 2 / maximum 4 graphs per person that compare two different variables that you used in Section 2.

Section 4:Project Conclusion

This is an important section, and its purpose is to show the key points of what you found out in your research, to link data together. Give relevant and supportable opinions based on the data, and also discuss what you were unable to find out due to certain data being unavailable.

Potential Examples of Thesis Statements

- Canada has a whole has more overweight/obese people than any other country in the world

- The Rate of Suicide in Canada has rapidly increased from 19901999

- Youth employment rates are seeing a steady decline because of the increased enrollment in school, and the demand for a higher education in order to be considered qualified for most jobs

- The strength of tourism market in Canada was affected by the events of 9-11

- The workplace is safer now than it has been in the past

- As time goes on, the number of people smoking has increased

- The amount of alcohol related driving fatalities have decreased dramatically over time

- The internet is an improvement for Canadian life, which is used across Canada despite users having similar security and privacy concerns, it still continues to attract people of all ages

- As the population of Canada and Ontario increases/decreases, the crime rate is affected

- Juvenile arrests for violent crimes are directly linked to the number of juvenile homicides involving the use of firearms