Data is changing the world. “Business intelligence,” “big data,” “data science,” and “analytics” have grown to be massive buzzwords across a multitude of industries. Even those who are not “data scientists” or “analysts” are increasingly being exposed to data – either through raw data itself or through curated & interactive charts, graphs, and dashboards. All this data stuff leads to two big questions. 1) As educators, how can we better teach the skills needed to succeed in a data-fied world? 2) Can we utilize data and data visualization to increase student engagement and understanding? Even in a traditionally non-data focused course?
Results/Conclusions
This presentation walks through a datafication how-to roadmap, and a case-study of an Intro to Environmental Science course. Students participated in several interactive “Data Visualization Days” (DVDs) throughout the course. In these combinations of lab and lecture, both data visualization and traditional learning objectives were combined to better engage students while teaching next-gen data skills. For each of these DVDs, the class walked through a relevant dataset while learning Tableau – the current leading data visualization software. Students were able to experience and better learn environmental science topics by creating graphs, charts, and maps themselves! Additionally, students grew comfortable with interpreting and critiquing common types of graphs. Despite a classroom filled with all grade levels and majors, a large majority of students specifically enjoyed and provided positive feedback on these DVDs.