Data projects for charities · Maths CAS idea
Adoption statistics for an animal shelter
ServiceProject-ready
Help a rescue centre see which factors relate to how long animals wait for adoption, using records they anonymise for you.
Where the maths comes in
Comparing groups, box plots, medians and being careful about correlation and cause.
Which CAS strand it fits
- Service: Unpaid, voluntary work with others that also has a learning benefit for you.
Your CAS coordinator decides how an experience counts at your school. Strand summaries are provisional (our words, being checked).
How to run it
- Agree the question and data with the shelter's manager.
- Clean the data and choose fair comparisons.
- Share findings with careful wording about what they do and do not show.
- Discuss with staff what they might try next.
This can grow into a CAS project if your CAS coordinator agrees: see planning a maths CAS project.
How to evidence it
- Question and data agreement
- Your analysis notes
- Manager's response
Date everything and keep it in your school's CAS portfolio as you go. More on what counts as evidence.
Reflection prompts
Questions to think about, not answers to copy. Write your reflections in your own words, in whatever form your school accepts.
- Where was it tempting to claim more than the data showed?
- How did you explain uncertainty to staff?
- What did you learn about how the shelter works?
Learning outcomes this often gives a chance to show
- Ethics. What choice in this experience had a right and a wrong way to do it? Whose interests did you have to protect (privacy, safety, fairness), and how?
- Global significance. How does the local need you worked on connect to a wider issue? What did you learn about that issue that you did not know before?
- Challenge and new skills. What could you not do at the start that you can do now? Which moment felt most uncomfortable, and what did you do next?
Whether you meet an outcome depends on what you actually do and reflect on, not on the idea. Outcome labels are our short summaries, being checked.
Safety and ethics
- No personal data about adopters; animal records only, as agreed with the shelter.
Agree every plan with your CAS coordinator first. Safety and ethics for maths CAS.
Need the statistics? The statistics guide (written for the IA) explains tests and charts step by step. Keep CAS and your IA separate.