8th Graders Capture Data Relevant to Their Lives
During class, 8th grade math teacher Beth is commonly asked: “Why do I need to learn this? What does this have to do with my life?”
The Dear Data project asks students to collect data about some aspect of their lives (distractions, apologies, eating, texting…), analyze their own data, and figure out some way to visualize it to share it with others and tell their story. What could be more relevant?
Beth first learned about Dear Data from Stanford professor @jo.boaler before adapting it for her own students. “Dear Data” (@deardatapostbox) was a yearlong project between @giorgialupi and @stefpos. For 52 weeks, these information designers captured data about their lives and exchanged data visualizations, then created a book and website to showcase their process.
Since our students’ responses to this project have been positive and strong, Beth decided to present it at the @camathcouncil‘s Asilomar Math Conference this year. It felt great for her to share her lesson plans and resources with other math educators and to know that there are already students beyond Prospect Sierra getting to experience the relevance of data science in their lives!
