The U.S. Census Bureau conducts a census of the country's population every 10 years. The next census is currently underway.
How would the questions and answers of a census in another country be different from our U.S. Census?
Grades 9-12 Learning Activity
Have your students to write down their answers to a series of questions as listed below. Then, to help students gain a greater understanding of life abroad, they can then compare their answers to the answers from someone in another part of the world.
How old are you?
Where do you live (city/region and country)?
How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Describe your home. (How many bedrooms does it have? Where do you play or relax? Where do you do your homework?)
Describe a typical day of the week for you. What are your daily responsibilities in your family? What do you do in your free time?
What is your favorite game or sport?
What is your favorite holiday? Describe what you do to celebrate the holiday.
What is your favorite food?
What subjects do you study in school? What is your favorite subject? What do you like or dislike about school?
What do you worry most about? Why?
What is more important to you? Why?
What do you hope to be or do when you grow up?
Using the CultureGrams Interviews feature, ask each student to access one interview for a person under age 18 (and, if possible, for someone within three years of their own age). As students read the interview, have them take note of similarities and differences between the interviewee's answers and their own answers.
Have them summarize their findings in a short essay or a list of similarities and differences. What similarities surprised them? What differences surprised them?
As a class, discuss the students' discoveries. Did they expect to have much in common with someone from another part of the world? What aspects of life in another country did they find strange or unfamiliar? What other questions would students want to ask people from other countries that would help them learn more about them? What type of information helps define a culture?
