There is access on the web to loads of real data, but often not in a form which students can work with immediately. Working with made up data, or data in contexts which students do not see any point to mean that students often view data as 'boring'.
The National Statistics website offers lots of real data sets on almost every aspect of life in the UK, and it is freely available. Choosing data sets which have a particular connection with your students is relatively easy through the 'neighbourhood statistics' feature - you can make comparisons between your locality and nationally. The links section will give you a number of sites you can explore for sources of real data which interest you and your students.
Many pupils find the interpretation of data difficult initially - they are not used to talking about mathematics, and using good contexts can help overcome that hurdle.
Adult learners may not even realise they are thinking mathematically if the data we use relates to a real life topic. "Handling data" is one of the sections of the adult core curriculum for numeracy that many teachers shy away from, yet is it is one of the easiest to integrate into a real life context.
I taught in Northern Ireland and house prices were big news for a while because there were rises of 30% and 40% in a year after many years of modest rises - but the rises had been consistent even when prices crashed in parts of England in the early 1990s. The graph below uses data from the National Statistics website to show this - and opens up a lot of opportunities for discussions.
Young people's use / abuse of alcohol is currently a very hot topic in the news. Education is often mentioned as a way improving the situation - but does it work. The graph below shows data on how often 14 year old boys drink separated by whether or not they have had lessons about alcohol - does it look as though education has had any impact on behaviour?
