New ODI Project Focuses on Nurturing Data Literacy in Elementary Earth Science

ODI was recently funded by the National Science Foundation to study how professionally collected, scientific data can be used to support elementary students (4th graders) to develop data literacy skills. The new project, Streams of Data, will create student activities that use existing geoscience data resources, which connect to observable, familiar aspects of the natural world, have personal relevance, and align with Earth science curriculum standards. An interdisciplinary team of educators, researchers, and scientists from EDC's Oceans of Data Institute and the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) will conduct baseline research to understand students' natural affinities for making meaning about complex data and phenomena; develop and test scaffolding activities that minimize barriers to analytical thinking with professionally collected data; and assemble promising approaches into a multi-activity experience to examine the degree to which the combination of activities allows students to do productive work with professionally collected data.