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The COVID-19 pandemic has offered opportunities to immerse high needs 10–14-year-olds in real-life data that matter. We developed and tested an out-of-school program to increase youth understanding of data science through epidemiology. The 15–20-hour Data Detectives Clubs are structured around an adventure novel, The Case of the COVID Crisis, which introduces readers to epidemics across space and time. Chapters are accompanied by activities, discussion, and exploration of infection and vaccine data using CODAP, the Common Online Data Analysis Platform. To date, around 600 youth have experienced the program, focusing primarily on time-series data. Youth learned about noisy data, comparing graphs, and matching rates to cumulative numbers. These clubs demonstrate the feasibility of integrating data science with epidemiology outside of school.
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Data science for youth in the time of COVID
Through the “COVID-Inspired Data Science through Epidemiology Education” project, 400 underserved middle-school youth across the United States are engaging in a 20-hour out-of-school data club centered on a novel. The narrative is integrated with hands-on data activities and modeling (e.g., creating graphs of infections over time in CODAP; modeling disease transmission rates in NetLogo). Youth learn to: 1) Use data tools to track the spread of a variety of infectious diseases; 2) Ask and address their own questions of data; and 3) Use data to communicate to local audiences about epidemiological patterns and challenges. The project breaks new ground in integrating data science with epidemiology education for 11–14-year-old youth.
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- PAR ID:
- 10638708
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Association for Statistical Education
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.52041/iase.hmtse
