These pre-made, introductory data science lessons are a way for students to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. We start with a question, find an open dataset to answer the question, and then ask students to reflect.
How have Arctic sea ice levels changed over time? What is sea ice? Why is it important? This NASA article had great answers to both questions: “Sea ice is a frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface.
Feb 23, 2021
How have humans impacted land usage over time? Get ready to look at data that’s millions of years old! We wondered how we could use data science to learn about they ways humans have interacted or changed the land around us.
Feb 18, 2021
How does Canada's CO2 emissions compare to other G7 countries? Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas. This means it's a "gas in the Earth's atmosphere that traps heat.” Think about greenhouse gases as tents.
Feb 10, 2021
How can we use data to look for evidence of climate change? When we think about climate change, temperature is a factor. Here’s a fun fact about temperature scales. When you hear people say, “degrees Fahrenheit”, did you know “Fahrenheit” was a person?
Feb 4, 2021
How popular are LED holiday lights in Canada? In addition to holiday music (which we talked about in last week’s visualization) the holidays are often marked by people decorating their homes with lights.
Dec 15, 2020
Are there other holiday songs that are as popular as, 'All I want for Christmas is you' ? You've likely heard this holiday tune before. If you haven't, play the YouTube video above.
Dec 8, 2020
Have you ever wondered what meme data looks like? We answered that question by looking at a dataset based on data from the "WeRateDogs" Twitter account. The dataset was created by Greg Baker, a Computing Science instructor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia (BC).
Dec 2, 2020
Have you ever wondered how you can use data to learn about the growth of COVID-19 cases? We answered that question by looking at how long it takes for reported COVID-19 cases to double in Canada.
Nov 26, 2020
Have you ever wondered what the most popular video games are? This week, we explored that question by creating two pie charts using Wikipedia data about: Number of players for specific games (first pie chart) Video game sales (second pie chart) Data source: Wikipedia: List of most-played games by player count
Nov 20, 2020
Have you ever wondered how World War I impacted Canada? Recommended grade level: 6-12 Remembrance Day is an opportunity to recognize the impact of the First and Second World Wars.
Nov 11, 2020