Working individually or in groups, conduct a survey among older people you know to find out what are the main factors that affect their overall well-being and happiness.

Draw up a list of factors that you think may be important. Choose one of the following:

• Present the older people with the list of factors and ask them to rank them in order of importance. For example, your list might include meeting family often, meeting friends often, being able to do my own shopping.
• Ask open-ended questions to allow the older people to name the things that make them happy. For example, your questions might include what things are most important to you? what do you really enjoy about your life?

Collect all the answers gathered by the class. Group the items listed by the older people into some meaningful groups and present the information as a table or a bar chart.

Discuss the results with your class and see whether the results agree with a survey like this carried out recently in Ireland. Ask your teacher what the outcome of this research was, which is in Activity 3 in the lesson plan.