Trang Tran is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Joe Polman is the Associate Dean for Research and a Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Kate Miller is a Research Associate. Cynthia McIntyre is the Director of Communications. 

A new National Science Foundation-funded study investigated how interdisciplinary, project-based learning can help middle school students develop their “data identity”—how they perceive and engage with data in meaningful ways. Promising results from our Contextualizing Data Education via Project-Based Learning (DataPBL) project include:

• Improved Data Agency: Students showed significant gains in their ability to interpret and work with data, with 22 out of 25 survey measures reflecting positive change.
• Identity Development: Students identified most with their ability to use data successfully in schoolwork and making sense of data.
• Real-World Engagement: Lessons integrating data into social studies empowered students to apply data in personal and societal contexts, fostering a deeper sense of agency.

The DataPBL project

From youth screen time to vaccination rates, data provides insights into real-world problems and issues. Thus improving students’ familiarity and understanding of—as well as practices with—data is critical for their sensemaking of the world and future success. Our DataPBL project co-designed data-infused curriculum addendums and created new CODAP plugins that provide student autonomy in selecting data. Two eighth grade social studies teachers implemented these data addendums to EL Education’s Food Choices and Japanese American Internment project-based modules. Students used CODAP to access relevant datasets and had high-quality opportunities to exhibit their understanding through authentic tasks.

Datasets enhance two social studies modules

One teacher taught social studies in New York City and another teacher taught humanities in Columbus, Ohio. Both teachers implemented a similar data-infused addendum to the Food Choices module, in which students read The Omnivore’s Dilemma in their English Language Arts (ELA) classes. Students studied the struggles of farm workers by analyzing historical Census data, World Health Organization data, farm production data, economic data, and data on agricultural workers’ demographics. To highlight the history of labor protections and injustices, students created data stories and wrote legislation to address food injustice in the United States today, then presented their work in committee meetings and a mock Congress.

Example of student data in CODAP used to defend a food injustice bill.

For the Japanese American internment module, the teachers took different approaches. In the Columbus, Ohio, school with a primarily Black student population, the data-infused addendum explored the experience of Japanese Americans before, during, and after forced incarceration. Students worked with data to examine examples and the meanings of belonging and identity in both historical and contemporary contexts of immigration in the U.S. The New York City school, in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood, framed their study around the question: “Who gets to be an American?” Students in both schools read Farewell to Manzanar in their ELA classes and looked at various datasets, including interviews with Japanese immigrants, modern immigration trends, current and historical census data, and ICE detention center data. Students created documentaries and infographics as their final projects.

Survey results

During the 2023-24 school year, 62 eighth grade students answered a 30-question pre-post retrospective survey after completing the two data-infused interdisciplinary project-based learning modules. (In this type of survey, students self-assess what they know and think from two viewpoints, before and after completing the curriculum modules.) Twenty-five questions were grouped in three categories: 1) data identification and positioning, 2) confidence and efficacy with data, and 3) data agency and relationship. The survey also included five demographic questions.

Students were asked to self-report levels of agreement with statements such as:

• My teachers see me as able to use data successfully.
• I am good at making sense of data.
• I’m able to use data to support different activities in my everyday life.

Students’ ratings improved on all 25 questions, and the pre-post increases were statistically significant for 22 questions. Of the nine questions in the data identification category, the largest pre-post increase was in response to the question, “I see myself as a data person.” The largest increase in the confidence category was in response to two questions that had the same pre-post gains: “I can do well on schoolwork that involves data” and “I’m good at making sense of data.” And in the data agency category, the statement “I’m capable of explaining and defending my data decisions when I use data to make an argument” saw the largest increase.

Conclusion

According to the two teachers in this study, who presented their work co-designing the data-infused modules at the inaugural Data Science Education K-12: Research to Practice Conference, “Using data as an additional source of information in the social studies classroom has been a game changer for engaging students in the authentic work of a social scientist.” By integrating data practices into existing interdisciplinary curriculum modules, the DataPBL project has demonstrated the promise of this approach.