THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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The Birthplaces of Immigrants to Canada (from
the 2001 Census)
Lesson Overview:
Students will learn, from the 2001 Census, the birthplaces of residents of Canada
who were born elsewhere. They will identify, from a map, the main source
regions and will learn how different ways of classifying the data change the
appearance of the map.
Grade Level:
9-12 (secondary school)
Time Required:
One 75-minute period
Curriculum Connection:
Ontario Grade 9 Geography of Canada
Link to Canadian National Geography Standards:
Essential Element #1: The World in Spatial Terms
 Map, globe, and atlas use (e.g. observing and analyzing relationships)
 Expanding locational technology (including GIS)
Essential Element #2: Places and Regions
 Changes in places and regions over time
Essential Element #4: Human Systems
 Impact of human migration
Geographic Skill #2: Acquiring Geographic Information
 Systematically locate and gather geographic information from a variety of
primary and secondary sources
Geographic Skill #3: Organizing Geographic Information
 Select and design appropriate forma of maps to organize geographic
information
Geographic Skill #4: Analyzing Geographic Information
 Make inferences and draw conclusions from maps
Link to Statistics Canada:
http://www.statcan.ca/start.html
From the Statistics Canada home page, click on Learning Resources in the left
panel.
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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Click on the graphic of E-STAT
Click on Accept and enter. Submit your User name and password.
Click on the blue Data tab.
Under the People heading, click on Population and demography.
Under Census Databases, click on Migration.
Under 2001 Census of Population (Provinces, Census Divisions,
Municipalities), click on 2001 Citizenship, Immigration, Birthplace,
Generation Status, Ethnic Origin, Visible Minorities and Aboriginal Peoples.
Under the Geography drop down menu, select 2001 – Canada, Provinces and
Territories (1)
Under the Characteristics drop down menu, click on Number of immigrants
from United Kingdom.
Scroll down until you see Number of immigrants from Cambodia. Hold the
SHIFT key on your keyboard down and click on it. This will select everything in
between as well.
Under Choose an output format, click on Table Areas as Columns.
For this lesson, you are only interested in the data for Canada.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the button: Reduce/Sort Geo
List.
In the box, click on 0000000 Canada.
Under 3 Screen Outputs, click on Table Areas as Columns.
You now have the data you need to complete the lesson.
Additional Resources, Materials and Equipment Required:
Atlas with political map of the world, blank world maps, pencil crayons,
calculators (computers with ArcView GIS for the technological version of the
lesson)
Main Objective:
The primary goal of the lesson is to have students map the birthplaces of
residents of Canada who were born elsewhere and to identify the key source
regions.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
 Find data from the 2001 Canadian Census on the Statistics Canada
website
 Classify the data using one or all of natural breaks, quantile and equal
interval methods
 Map the data using a graduated colour map with either pencil crayon or
ArcView GIS
 Identify the source regions of residents of Canada who were born
elsewhere
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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The Lesson:
Introduction
Teacher Activity
Ask students where they were born. You may wish to do
this by a show of hands or record the information on the
blackboard. You could also ask if their parents and
grandparents were born in Canada. A comment on the
multicultural nature of Canada’s population could be made
here.
Responding to teacher’s request for
information.
1. Ask students to think about which countries supply
Canada with most of its immigrants. Ask them to think
about where they could get this information. Talk about the
kinds of information collected during a census of
population.
Students use the Statistics Canada
website to find the birthplaces of
residents of Canada who were born
elsewhere.
Question: How is the data organized?
(ranked from highest to lowest)
2. Give students directions on how to find the information
about birthplaces from the Statistics Canada website and
have them find it.
Lesson Development
Student Activity
3. Talk about how /why numerical information needs to be
organized and simplified for mapping (make it more easily
understood). Have students examine the data and look for
natural groupings (countries that have supplied a similar
number of immigrants to Canada) with a view to creating
six groups. (One way to do this is to look for large
differences).
4. Explain what a graduated colour map is and have
students create one.
5. You may wish to describe other ways of classifying the
data (quantile, equal interval).
Students examine the data and look
for large differences and natural
groupings (the largest gaps are
between China /Hong Kong and Italy,
India and the US, Philippines and
Poland, and the Netherlands and Sri
Lanka).
Students should create a graduated
colour map complete with a legend to
show this grouped data. This can be
done with pencil crayons on an
outline map or with ArcView GIS (a
dbf file is supplied with this lesson. It
can be joined to an existing shapefile)
Conclusion
File Name: birthplaces.dbf The
advantage of using the GIS is the
ability to reclassify the data. Students
could also divide the data by the
countries’ populations to see per
capita results.
Have students look at their maps and identify the main
source areas. Ask why they are the source areas and why
areas such as Africa are not. How will the change in
source areas impact Canada?
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
Examine maps and identify source
areas. Take notes about the reasons.
Note the change in source areas over
time (Europe first, now Asia).
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Lesson Extension:
The extension is a set of more detailed instructions for those who want to use
ArcView GIS to complete the lesson. You should have some familiarity with the
software.
Installations of ArcView GIS 3.2 include a shapefile of the countries of the world.
Look for it in the following directory:
esri/av_gis30/avtutor/arcview/qstart/world94.shp Add this shapefile to the
View.
Download the birthplaces.dbf file. Note the directory in which you save it.
In ArcView GIS, add the birthplaces.dbf file from the project window.
Click on the Fips column in the birthplaces.dbf table. Do the same in the
Attributes of World94.shp table and then click on the Join button.
Go to View1 and use the Legend Editor to try different classifications of the data.
Assessment of Student Learning:
Students’ maps can be evaluated. Look for an appropriate title, a legend with
graduated colours and range of values, the correct countries coloured and
neatness.
A unit test could include questions about the source areas of Canadian
immigrants.
Further Reading:
Chinese Canadians: Enriching the cultural mosaic, (Canadian Social Trends magazine,
Winter, 2005)
Ethnocultural Diversity in Canada: Prospects for 2017, (Canadian Social Trends
magazine, Winter, 2005)
Both of these articles are found on the Statistics Canada website. Follow this
path:
E-STAT/ Articles/ Population and demography/
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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Birthplaces of Canadian Immigrants
Using ArcView GIS
You will be completing a map of the world with ArcView GIS to show the
birthplaces of Canadian immigrants as tallied in the 2001 Census.
Steps:
1. Turn on the computer and monitor.
2. Enter your assigned login and password.
3. Double click on the ArcView GIS icon on the desktop.
4. Choose the button “with a View” and click OK.
NOTE: IF YOU DON’T SEE THIS WINDOW,
DO THIS.
FROM THE FILE MENU, CHOOSE NEW
PROJECT.
CLICK ON THE NEW BUTTON TO CREATE
A NEW VIEW.
CLICK ON THE ADD THEME BUTTON AND
PROCEED TO STEP 6.
5. Click Yes in the following window.
6. You will be adding a shapefile called world94.shp. It is typically found in the
following directory:
c:/esri/AV_GIS30/avtutor/arcview/qstart/world94.shp
Double click to move through
the directories.
Once added, the file will appear
in the Table of Contents. Click
on the tiny raised square to
draw the map in the right-hand
window.
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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7. The map looks unnatural because it is not projected. From the View menu,
choose Properties. Click on the Projection button. From the Type drop down
menu, choose Robinson. Click OK and then OK again.
8. The map does not include data about the birthplaces of Canada’s immigrants.
This must be added to the project.
From the Window menu, choose 1 Untitled to activate the Project window.
Click once on the Table icon and click once on the Add
button.
Your teacher will
tell you how to find the file
needed. It’s called birthplaces.dbf.
9. The table must be joined to the existing Attribute
table so that the birthplace data can be mapped.
Click once on the Fips column heading.
From the Window menu, choose View1.
Click on the Open Theme Table button.
Click once on the Fips_code column heading.
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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Click on the Join button.
10. To map the birthplace data, you need to return to View1 via the Window
menu.
Double click on World94.shp in the Table of Contents or click once on the Edit
Legend button.
In the Legend Editor, change Legend Type to Graduated Colour. Change the
Classification Field to Immigrants.
Click on the Apply button.
You will notice only some countries are drawn. This is because only 50 countries
have data. For the rest, you need to add a symbol to represent these No Data
countries.
Do this:
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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Click on the Null Value button.
Click in the tiny square beside Include No Data
Class in
Legend.
Click the OK button.
Double click in the space below the darkest colour.
This opens the Symbol Window. Click on the symbol in the top left corner.
Click on the Paint brush along the top of the window.
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
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From the Colour drop down menu, choose Outline. Click on the black colour
palette. Close the window.
Click the Apply button in the Legend Editor window. Now you should see all the
countries.
If you’d like to take a closer look at any region, draw a box on the map with the
Zoom In tool.
11. A variety of other map displays can be created by changing the classification
method.
In the Legend Editor, click on the Classify… button.
ArcView GIS uses Natural Breaks as the default (automatic) classification. Your
teacher may wish to discuss and have you try other methods of classification.
Another opportunity to display the data differently comes from the Normalize by:
drop down window.
Normalize just means divide by. If you divided the data by population, you can
obtain per capita (per person) results.
An entirely different map appearance can
be achieved by changing from Graduated
Colour to Dot or Chart symbols in the
Legend Type drop down menu. Your
teacher may ask you to try these.
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
ONTARIO - SECONDARY
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
ONTARIO - SECONDARY
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THE BIRTHPLACES OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
Canadian Council for Geographic Education (www.ccge.org)
Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca)
ONTARIO - SECONDARY
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