This site provides excellent opportunities to examine the Black Death from a slightly alternative lens, through numbers and figures. Without diluting or lessening the facts and content, this site is easily navigated and covers many key features of the plague. The use of interesting and informative data, maps and other media presents a thought-provoking approach to this significant event. Information is easily accessed, using statistics and numeracy to engage learning.
Structure and features
The 'The Black Death, a history in numbers' resource provides:
- excellent information and data to establish and develop an understanding of the Black Death
- an interesting way of using numbers to understand a historical event
- easy navigation with clear and concise headings and subheadings
- all critical knowledge about the Black Death
- images, images maps and other media to support student learning.
For teachers
This site provides several opportunities to build learning around this significant historical event. Most key features and content about the Black Death has a good level of detail and this site uses numbers and statistics to cue understanding. There are excellent opportunities to provoke thinking, comparison and understanding. The site provides a great overview of the plague connecting many of the dots about cause, conditions and consequences. Embedding and identifying numeracy within the descriptions allows students to grasp big ideas. Opportunities to build overviews, infographics, analysis of figures and statistics or graphing details exist within the information provided. Contrasting and commenting on the significance of the Black Death compared to recent epidemics and pandemics could also be an interesting exercise for students.
