Activity One - Card Sort

To investigate the preconceived ideas that often exist about our world is really like we are going to use the resources and lessons from 'Gapminder' and the 'OER Big History'.

1. The class will be divided into teams of approximately three to five students.

2. Collect a set of country cards.

3. Each team will arrange the cards according to the development of that specific country.

4. As a class, each team will explain how they have arranged their cards and why they did that.

Useful Resource

Gapminder Card Sort

Activity Two - Describing Data

We are now going to see if what you believe about certain nations correlate to the actual data. We will be using gapminder - the famous graphs with the bubbles - to do this.

Part One

1. Using the graph below in the 'Useful Resource' box describe the relationship between life expectancy and income.

2. Explain how health and income can play a key role in determining a countries level of development.

Part Two

On your gapminder graphs circle the 16 countries from the card sort (activity one). Then answer the following questions as a team.

1. How did your card arrangements compare to what the graph actually shows?

2. Were there any surprising results?

3. What do you think the difference is between High and Low Income countries?

4. How does poverty and access to health care impact women and minority groups more than others?

Useful Resource

Gapminder - Graph to Print

Gapminder Interactive Map - Health versus Income