What’s the Deal with Data Science?

Room to Grow - a Math Podcast

In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie dig into a conversation about data science. They start by trying to define what data science is, describing it as the intersection of content, statistics, computer science, problem solving. It is complex, and allows people to interact with information that content, statistics, or computer science couldn’t do alone. In our current technology and data rich world, this topic is timely, relevant, and growing in importance.

Curtis and Joanie describe data science as a process by which we start with a question we want to know the answer to, then gather, interpret, analyze, and model data that can help answer the question. Although we acknowledge that data science in school looks different than data science in the world, we recognize it as a valuable way to foster students’ natural curiosity and to build their modeling, problem solving, and communication skills.

Our hosts recognize and discuss that not everyone believes that data science is relevant content for K-12 students and educators, and offer the complicating factors that come alongside bringing new ideas such as these to the curriculum. We encourage you to explore the resources to decide for yourself!

• Blog series in support of data science https://justequations.org/blog
• Article expressing critique against using data science in place of calculus-centered courses Jo Boaler and youcubed data sicence big ideas for K-8 https://www.youcubed.org/data-big-ideas/
• UCLA data science course https://www.introdatascience.org/
• Berkeley data science course: http://data8.org/
• Cal State free Course for teachers Course Kata: https://coursekata.org/
• Jo Boaler and youcubed data sicence big ideas for K-8 https://www.youcubed.org/data-big-ideas/
• Data talks for students in younger grades https://www.youcubed.org/resource/data-talks/
• New York Times’ What’s going on with this graph? https://www.nytimes.com/column/whats-going-on-in-this-graph
• Data Science 4 Everyone: https://www.datascience4everyone.org/

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [e-mail] . Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.