2. Counting Heads: who lived in Swansea in 1851?

This task uses transcripts in Excel of the 1851 Census for streets in central Swansea and should ideally be done in the computer suite (if available) with each pair or group of students focussing on one street or area.

Use Census Activity Sheet 1 or adapt it to suit your students. Most of the questions require students to use some of the simple tools in Excel such as sorting, filtering, finding and adding data. The questions in italics are thinking about the data questions!

When you have completed the Activity Sheet, compare your findings with those of the other groups. If there are differences, discuss why that might be the case. Finally summarise in groups:

What are the FACTS we know about the people in our street or area?

What are our OPINIONS about the people in our street or area?

What else would we like to know about these people? How could we find out?