Teaching data science to secondary students: the mobilize introduction to data science curriculum

Abstract

Making sense of data is complex, and the knowledge and skills required to understand "Big Data" - and many open data sources - go beyond those taught in traditional introductory statistics courses. The Mobilize project has created and implemented a course for secondary students, Introduction to Data Science (IDS), that aims to develop computational and statistical thinking skills so that students can access and analyze data from a variety of traditional and non-traditional sources. Although the course does not directly address open source data, such data are used in the curriculum, and an outcome of the project is to develop skills and habits of mind that allow students to use open source data to understand their community. This paper introduces the course and describes some of the challenges in its implementation.