Year 7 › Term 5
Term 5 — Lessons 14–17
Collecting real data of your own, telling stories with data, and exploring how AI works — and the ethics around using it responsibly.
Lesson 14 — Data Collection in the Wild
What you'll achieve: collect real primary data in the school corridor, merge it with your class's data, and spot any outliers.
Excel
- Primary data
- Data you collect yourself, first-hand.
- Secondary data
- Data that someone else has already collected, which you reuse.
- Tally chart
- A quick way of counting things using marks, grouped in fives.
- Outlier
- A piece of data that is very different from the rest and stands out.
I Do
Watch your teacher explain the difference between primary data and secondary data, with examples, then demonstrate a tally chart on the board.
We Do
As a class, agree what to count in the school corridor, e.g. footwear colour or bag type, and how to record it using a tally chart.
You Do
- Go out and collect real primary data using your tally chart.
- Return and enter your tally totals into Excel.
- Merge your data with the rest of the class into one shared spreadsheet.
- Look through the merged data and spot any outliers.
- Discuss: could an outlier be a mistake, or is it a genuine result?
Lesson 15 — Telling Stories with Data
What you'll achieve: analyse a real dataset in Excel and present your findings as a Canva slide or poster.
ExcelCanva
- Dataset
- A collected set of related data, usually organised in rows and columns.
- Trend
- A pattern that data shows over time or across categories.
- Finding
- A conclusion you can support using evidence from the data.
I Do
Watch your teacher show the three downloadable datasets on the data resource page, then pick out one interesting trend from a sample dataset.
We Do
As a class, discuss what makes a good "finding" — a clear claim that is backed up by a number from the data.
You Do
- Choose one of the three downloadable datasets on the resource page.
- Analyse it in Excel — use formulas and at least one chart.
- Pick your two most interesting findings.
- Present your findings as a Canva slide or poster, using your chart as evidence.
Lesson 16 — What is AI?
What you'll achieve: use Copilot for a guided task, then critically evaluate its answer and check it isn't a hallucination.
CopilotBrowser
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Computer systems that can perform tasks that normally need human intelligence.
- Training data
- The huge collection of examples an AI system learns patterns from.
- Hallucination
- When an AI confidently states something false as if it were true.
I Do
Watch your teacher explain that AI learns patterns from huge amounts of example data, rather than being programmed with exact rules.
We Do
As a class, ask Copilot a guided question together and check its answer against a reliable source.
You Do
- Ask Copilot your own guided question from the task sheet.
- Read its answer carefully and critically — don't just accept it.
- Check at least one fact in the answer against another source.
- Decide: did Copilot get anything wrong, or "hallucinate"? Write down what you found.
Lesson 17 — AI & Ethics
What you'll achieve: debate the ethics of AI and build a "responsible AI use" guide in Canva.
CanvaCopilot
- Bias
- When a system unfairly favours or disadvantages certain people or ideas.
- Deepfake
- A fake image, video or audio clip made using AI that looks or sounds real.
- Ethics
- Thinking carefully about what is right and wrong when using technology.
I Do
Watch your teacher show a real example of bias in an AI system and a deepfake example, and discuss why both are a problem.
We Do
As a class, use the ethics debate table to discuss for/against prompts, e.g. "AI-generated art should be allowed in competitions."
You Do
- Pick one AI ethics issue — bias or deepfakes — to focus on.
- Discuss for/against arguments using the debate table.
- Design a "responsible AI use" guide in Canva with at least three clear rules.
- Share your guide with a partner and compare rules.
BLC