Teaching Guide
Title: Wage and Gender Comparisons in the United States
Lesson Developer: MaryAnn Heglie-King
Subject Area: Mathematics
Grade Level: Middle School (7th grade)
Lesson Description: This inquiry-based lesson requires pairs of students to use GIS data layers to compare and contrast education levels and wages for male and female workers in a variety of careers in the United States. Students visually examine map layers representing education level. The students also use queries to compare between similarities and differences between education and income level, and how these two are consistent with gender. The follow-up lesson allows students to use the data from the web-based map to make overall comparisons of the data using mean, median and a box-and-whisker plot, as well as numerical comparisons using difference, rate, scale factor, percent, and ratio.
Recommended Time to Teach: Two 45 minute lessons
National Standards:
Technology:
1) 6. Technology Operations and Concepts
Students utilize technology concepts and tools to learn. Students:
- Select, use, and troubleshoot tools efficiently.
- Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.
2) 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making
Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students:
- Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.
- Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.
- Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and or make informed decisions.
- Use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.
Mathematics:
1)7.1 Number and Operations and Algebra: Develop an understanding of operations
on all rational numbers and solving linear equations.
2)7.2 Number and Operations, Algebra and Geometry: Develop an understanding of and apply proportionality, including similarity.
Social Studies:
1)SS.08.EC.01 Understand incentives in a market economy that influence individuals and businesses in allocating resources (time, money, labor, and natural resources).
2)SS.08.EC.07.01 Understand how money functions as a means of exchange, a store of value, and a measure of value.
Learning Objectives:
Geospatial Concepts - students will be able to:
1) Use GIS to make comparisons of wages between men and women in two career choices in three different parts of the United States.
2) Use GIS to locate states where wages and gender are similar to Oregon’s for two different career choices.
3) Use GIS to correlate education level and wage for men and women for different career choices.
- Other Discipline: Mathematics - students will be able to:
1) Use difference, ratio, rate, proportion, and/or percent to make comparisons among various career choices and wages in the state of Oregon.
2) Use difference to quantitatively compare career choices for men and women in three different states.
- Career Connection:
Students will do a Google search looking for how GIS is used in the workplace. Students will list at least five careers in which GIS is used. Business applications are plentiful. For example, annual consumer spending data/available spending capacity based on wages in the area may influence locating new retail opportunities. Colleges and trade schools could use the data to promote their programs as a means to a higher income for it’s graduates. A company called Economic Research Institute (ERI) uses this information in geographic and industry specific salary survey, cost of living and executive compensation benchmarks. The United States Census Department would use GIS in its work.
Web-based GIS Tools: The find tool will be used to locate states that are similar to Oregon in average salary and then to look at specific career choices in those states and make comparisons on wages based on gender. The information tool will be use to collect information about wages and gender for specific careers that students choose from the layers menu. The query tool will be used to allow students to gather data regarding educational level and make comparisons between education level and wage level.
Materials: Answer sheets, pen/pencil, paper. Map of the United States is included. Students have the web-based map for identification of individual states.
Prerequisites: Students will have just finished a unit on ratio and proportion in which they will have made comparisons of numbers/amounts using ratio, proportion, percent and difference. Students will need these skills in this lesson. Students will also need to know how to make a box –and-whisker plot as well as find mean and median.
The Lesson
Beginning the Lesson
1) A review of how students have learned to make comparisons will be done the day before the lesson.
2) We will begin the lesson with this question: Do you think men and women are paid the same amount for the same job? Do you think the amount of education you have has an effect on wage level? How might we use data to make comparisons about this? What sort of data would we need to have?
Developing the Lesson
1) Students will need to know about using a Web-based GIS viewer. They can do this by watching the tutorial video or working through the tutorial.
2) Walk students through opening up web-based map. Take them through the first steps together until they begin to take off on their own.
3) In pairs students will complete the questions, fill out the chart and then map their results.
4) Students may also look for positive or negative relationships between educational levels and income. If this option is chosen to be implemented, it is recommended that an introduction to positive and negative relationships is introduced during the lesson.
Concluding the Lesson
Students will use the data for Oregon from the Web-based map the following day to make number comparisons. Students will have the data displayed on the using the classroom computer and projector. Students will also receive a printout of that information. Data using the query function will be used. Students will be asked to make three different comparisons for two different career choices. These comparisons will include three of the following; difference (how much more one gender receives than another), rate (how much one gender is paid per $1 pay for the other), percent (what percent one gender is paid of the other), proportional (ratio comparison), or factor (how many times one gender is paid over the other). Students will do this for two different career choices.
Students will also be asked to make some observations about what they discovered in doing this activity. Questions students may choose to respond to include: 1)Are you surprised by what the data you looked at shows about gender and wages in the United States? 2)Does the data you looked at fit what you expected about gender and wage differences? 3)Where there any specific career choices you looked at that interested you? Were you surprised by the average wage for that career? 4) What is your opinion on getting a college education and how that affects your “earning power” as an adult? 5) Do you think you might choose a career in which you would work with GIS technology. 6) Do you think you will stay in Oregon as an adult based on what you have seen?
Career Connections: Students will do a web search of how GIS is used in the workplace. We will do a class discussion on this a day or two after concluding the lesson to further spike their interest in the possibilities that exist for them.
Assessment/Evaluation: The assessment of this lesson will occur the next day after the lesson when students will be asked to make direct comparisons from the data. During the first part of the lesson students were able to use GIS to explore the data on the web-based map and look at some specific career choices and the gender/wage differences in a few different states. They will then take that data and make comparisons using range, median, difference, ratio, percent, and scale factor.
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Cohort II Fall 2010 - GEOSTAC NSF-ATE # 0903330