Data Science
Understanding the Role of Data in the World   

In a world that is always connected, it’s becoming increasingly critical that students develop basic data science literacy skills to make informed decisions and meet the demands of a modern mathematical society. That’s why the Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools emphasizes the importance of exposing students to all types of data visualizations, including those that are not standard and those that include multiple variables. 

We know that connecting math to a student’s real world increases the student’s engagement and improves the student’s critical-thinking and decision-making skills, which is why we have created Data Talks and Data Investigations. These activities provide an opportunity for Eureka Math^2® California students to dive into data that is relevant in their world and to work together to make sense of it.

Data Talks are short activities that expose students to data and allow them to interpret data visualizations, build the necessary skills to make observations and ask questions, and develop the critical-thinking skills they need to interpret the data surrounding them every day.

Let’s look at some of the key benefits found in Great Minds^® Data Talks.

1. Knowledge Building: Data Talks include a variety of visualizations that expose students to both familiar and unfamiliar data displays. The series includes traditional displays, such as bar and line graphs, and nonstandard data visualizations rarely found in mathematics textbooks. This combination of a variety of data representations and real-world contexts allows students to build their data-analysis skills as they build their knowledge of topics related to science, history, nutrition, popular culture, and more.

2. Engaging: Real data and relevant contexts engage students’ curiosity and naturally spark knowledge-rich conversations. Data Talks cover topics including sports, such as basketball players with the most missed shots and ice hockey teams with the fewest championships, and more. The digital format of Data Talks ensures real, up-to-date data sets so that each exercise reflects data in the world around students.

3. Coherent: Coherence is built within the series of Data Talks by using similar displays and topics across grade levels.

4. Flexible: Each Data Talk is designed as a short 10-minute activity that can be facilitated at any point during the instructional day, making them very flexible. The closing of a Data Talk is not a landing point but rather a launch into other research or data—or even an entirely new investigation.

5. Accessible: Data Talks are low-floor, high-ceiling by design. This means that all students can easily access the content, begin the exercise, and then participate at their own level as the exercise unfolds.

Data Investigations are multiday activities that expose students to the full statistical investigative process—from formulating an investigative question to collecting, interpreting, and reporting on the findings.

This Grade 3 example walks students through analyzing when their classroom is the loudest. Students work through asking a statistical question, collecting data, analyzing that data, and interpreting the results.

Like Data Talks, Data Investigations are knowledge building, engaging, coherent, flexible, and accessible. Both activities support students in becoming good data analysts who interrogate both the data and the process by which it was collected. Through Data Talks and Data Investigations, students build the cognitive skills and confidence they need to engage and question the world of data around them.