Overview

The amount of freely available Geoscience data is astounding, inspiring, and sometimes overwhelming to think about integrating into our teaching. One of the biggest challenges is that even with these freely available data and quick graphing options in online platforms, many students still struggle with making sense of the data.

Join us. On Day 1, we will highlight findings of perception science and approaches to data visualization to help students unpack "Analyzing & Interpreting Data" when it comes to looking at lots of geoscience data. We will explore how utilizing online data portals' quick graph features for initial data exploration can help break down the black box of data for students, and how to leverage these features more effectively in students' Exploratory Data Analysis. Then we will discuss how to leverage perception sciences and data visualization tricks to our advantage to help students build their data analysis skills more deeply with easy-to-use classroom strategies.

On Day 2, we will dive into how to leverage Data Storytelling as a strategy to build data interpretation skills, and key to Explanatory Data Analysis. Storytelling is highly engaging for both storytellers and listeners. It promotes cognitive engagement as students visually process the information in sequence which enables critical thinking about the information beyond just vocabulary and identifying a specific data pattern. Data storytelling also is a great platform for educators to understand how and what students learn. We will discuss and plan ways to implement these strategies into our future courses.

There are many layers to becoming data literate and so many things to explore and do with geoscience data. Building our students' ability to work with and make sense of data patterns is critical for their overall data and science literacy. We need to remember developing data literacy is a marathon not a sprint; so let's make sure we have running shoes, not track spikes, as we embark on helping our students get there.

Workshop Program » Workshop Resources (login required) »

Target Audience

This workshop is designed for those who work with students in grades 6 through entry level undergraduate courses.

Goals

As a result of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Access, download, and use multiple freely available, online, large datasets relevant to environmental science and earth science topic areas.
• Identify how to leverage Gestalt Principles within graphics and through instruction to support learner's pattern recognition and data analysis.
• Identify best practices for utilizing and teaching data storytelling as a means of enhancing data interpretation, as well as a formative assessment task.
• Differentiate instruction of Exploratory Data Analysis and Explanatory Data Analysis, with different classroom-ready strategies to implement each within future courses.

Format

Each day will include:

• Hands-on work with online data portals and real-world datasets (*bring your own device),
• Introduction to the data topics and key areas that students often get tripped up for each,
• Collaborative activities designed to explore the key concepts as learners ourselves and then as facilitators of future learning,
• Sharing ideas about how to approach specific tasks,
• Exploration and discussion of various classroom-ready strategies to leverage,
• Implementation planning to identify how to apply the materials for your own class(es), and
• Reflection about the morning's topics, strategies, and tasks.