On Monday 19th February, the Data Education in Schools team were delighted to be invited to run a full morning in-service programme on Data literacy for primary school teachers in West Lothian. Fifty-two fantastic and engaged teachers from five local primary schools spent the morning on a range of interactive, data-themed activities aimed at giving teachers ideas and strategies for introducing and integrating data skills into the Primary curriculum.
The morning started with teachers from Mid Calder, Parkhead, Woodmuir, Calderwood and Kirknewton primary schools exploring different graphs and working together to figure out answers contained within each presentation of data – from global gas emissions to historic Tour de France data – each activity demonstrated different ways to present complex datasets in an easy to decipher format.
The groups then went on to design their own personalised data name badge, visualising information that was personal to each of them and sharing them with colleagues – much hilarity and plenty of talking points were generated by this activity.
We then introduced our newest ‘Data Physicalisation’ or “Phizzy Data” activity – based on a great session Kate and Jasmeen had attended at the Information Plus conference – where the creativity and fun in the room really shone. A table showing perceived levels of social respectability of different actions (in different locations) was turned into an array of fun and imaginative physical representations, including cocktail glasses, a dinner plate, and not one, but two toilets!
The morning finished off with fifty-two ‘Agents of Data’ undertaking the ‘Locked in the DATA base’ escape room activity, working through puzzles in order to crack the code and escape the DATA base!!
There was a great buzz in the room throughout and the session gave teachers plenty of practical tips and activities to bring data skills into their own classroom.