Investigating Immigration to the U.S.
Lesson Overviews, Learning Objectives, & Sample Lessons

Lesson 1. Who are immigrants in the U.S.?

The goal of this lesson is to introduce the overarching theme of this module: Who has been immigrating to the U.S, and how have immigrants shaped U.S. society over time? Students pose questions about immigration and decide which questions can be answered with data. They will learn about the American Community Survey and the decennial censuses as data sources that can help explore questions about immigration to the U.S.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Pose questions about U.S. immigrants that can and cannot be answered with data

• Summarize key information about immigrants and U.S.-born individuals that is collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through the American Community Survey (ACS)

• Identify the four steps of the Data Investigation Cycle

Lesson 2. What can we learn about immigration from the American Community Survey?

The activities in this lesson are designed to engage students in exploration of the data source of the module: The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Students will learn about how the data collected by the ACS are coded and organized, and will learn about ACS variables (attributes) and categories of information. Students will use a data analysis tool called CODAP to explore how data can be assembled and represented in tables and graphs.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Describe what kind of information is collected by the ACS

• Describe how the variables (attributes) in a dataset relate to the ACS questionnaire

• Use the CODAP data portal to create a dataset

• Describe how data in a table relates to data in a graph

Lesson 3. What percentage of the U.S. population are immigrants?

In this lesson, students examine data from the ACS to determine the percentage of the U.S. population who were immigrants in 2017. In the next lesson they will compare their findings to other points in time in U.S. history. The lesson discusses the concepts of sample proportions and percentages, how these concepts are involved in analyzing categorical variables, and the approximate margin of error around sample estimates.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Use a proportion or percentage of a sample to estimate the proportion or percentage of a population

• Explain why sample proportions will vary from sample to sample

• Explain what margin of error means and why it is important to include this calculation when reporting findings

• Compare findings to predictions

Focus CODAP Skills

Students will be able to:

• Take screenshots and create links to share their graphs

• Create a categorical attribute from a quantitative attribute (extension activity)

SAMPLE LESSON: Lesson 4. Are there more immigrants in the U.S. today than in previous years?

This lesson continues to use data to explore the trends in immigration. Students will investigate how levels of immigration to the U.S. have changed over time by examining the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. population in 1920, 1970, and 2017.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Describe the distribution of a categorical attribute using percentages and proportions

• Compare two different percentages and write a conclusion about whether or not the difference is larger than the approximate margin of error

• Interpret a timeplot using background information

Focus CODAP Skills

Students will be able to:

• Create a data sample with given attributes

• Determine sample percentages and proportions

Teacher Materials

➤ Teacher Guide

SAMPLE LESSON: Lesson 5. Where have most immigrants been coming from?

The goal of this lesson is to have students examine the changing world origins of immigrants over time, and to reflect on causes behind these changes. In this investigation, students will gain experience generating and comparing percentages of categorical data from different years.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Create a graph and calculate numbers to compare percentages across groups

• Use this information to analyze the association between two categorical variables

Focus CODAP Skills

Students will be able to:

• Compute row percentages and column percentages

Teacher Materials

➤ Teacher Guide

Lesson 6. Where have immigrants settled in the U.S.?

The goal of this lesson is to have students examine variation in immigrants’ geographic settlement patterns. Through this investigation, students will gain further experience generating and comparing percentages of categorical data.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Read and interpret percentages from bar graphs

• Attend to what is the “part” and what is the “whole” when calculating and interpreting a percentage

Focus CODAP Skills

Students will be able to:

• Use graphs and appropriate row or column percentages to describe the association between two categorical attributes

Lesson 7. Are immigrants as likely as the U.S. born to be in the labor force?

This lesson explores ACS data to study the labor force participation rates of U.S.-born individuals and immigrants. The lesson also aims to develop students’ understanding that the association between two variables may change after “controlling” for a third attribute. Specifically, what happens to the difference in labor force participation rates between U.S.-born individuals and immigrants when we control for education level? In this investigation, students will gain experience generating and comparing percentages for categorical data with more than two possible categories. They will also gain experience with data cleaning and subsetting.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Determine percentages based on what is the “part” and what is the “whole”

• Read and interpret percentages from bar graphs

• Describe what may happen to the association between two attributes when controlling for a third attribute

Focus CODAP Skills

Students will be able to:

• Identify attributes of individual cases in a graph by selecting and finding the cases in the data table

• Create multiple graphs (such as in a side-by-side layout) to examine the association between two attributes when adjusting (or controlling) for a third attribute

Lesson 8. Dispelling Myths about Immigrants and Immigration

This lesson features a jigsaw reading activity to further investigate and dispel myths about immigrants and immigration to the U.S. In this lesson, each student becomes an expert on a resource and shares what they learned with their small group. This lesson could be implemented before or after the Final Data Investigation and gives more insight into the experiences of immigrants.

SAMPLE LESSON: Final Data Investigation

Students will choose and investigate a new question related to immigrants in the U.S. They will apply their understanding of the 4-step Data Investigation Cycle as well as statistical concepts to address their chosen question. Specifically, they will identify a question to answer, assemble a data set using ACS and/or decennial census data, use graphs and tables to analyze the data, and justify conclusions based on the data. After investigating patterns between two attributes, students will examine how the relationship between two attributes may change when adjusting for a third attribute.

Questions for further investigation of immigrants in the U.S.:

1. What types of occupations are immigrants most likely to hold compared to U.S.-born individuals?

2. How does the typical wage of immigrants compare to the typical wage of U.S.-born individuals?

3. Are immigrants in 2017 less likely than immigrants in 1980 to speak English well?

o Note that this question addresses one of the claims discussed in Lesson 1.

Possible third attributes:

• Sex, race/ethnicity, education, age, marital status, U.S. region, birthplace (an option for question 3 only).

Student Materials

➤ Immigration Final Data Investigation Assignment

The full set of materials are freely available for use, but we ask you to provide us with some information about your context by completing this form.

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