SS Pathway B: Engage in Data Practices for Social Studies Inquiry (Overview)

Data is increasingly critical to understanding our world, and being fluent in data practices is a key element of being an informed and engaged citizen. Within social studies instruction, data and data science can help students understand social, political, historical, economic, or geographic phenomena. Whether through collecting and analyzing data they collect themselves or engaging with data sets or visualizations made by others, students’ ability to think critically about the world can be deepened through data fluency. This integration pathway supports teachers in having students work directly with data to find patterns, generate questions, and make predictions about the world they live in.

In this building block, you will explore how computational thinking can be used to engage students in data practices.

This building block highlights three practices:

B1 Critically engage with data visualizations related to social issues

B2 Critically engage with data sets related to social issues

B3 Engage in data-based inquiry around social issues

As you complete this project, and others in this building block, consider the following questions for your own classroom instruction:

• What does it look like to engage in data practices in a social studies classroom?
• Does engaging students in data practice support social studies learning outcomes? How?

The B1 practice focuses on how to critically engage with data visualizations related to social issues through two discreet practices:

1. Explore data visualizations to come to conclusions, generate new questions, and/or make predictions about social, historical, political, economic, or geographic phenomena.
2. Assess the perspective of and potential biases present in data visualizations to understand the viewpoint of their creators.

B1.1 An activity that uses a real-life application of this practice could begin with having students consider a visualization of police shootings across America. Guided questioning could ask students to consider: what surprises you? What matches your expectations? You can also search the database at the bottom to learn more about specific incidents in your area.

B1.2 Compare and contrast different community or country maps, focused on the same region, to make claims about what perspectives are foregrounded or backgrounded in these maps.

The B2 practice focuses on how to critically engage with data sets related to social issues through three discreet practices:

1. Explore existing data sets to draw conclusions, generate new questions, and/or make predictions about social, historical, political, economic, or geographic phenomena.

2. Determine what questions a data set related to social, historical, political, or economic phenomena may or may not be able to answer.
3. Assess the perspective and potential biases present in data sets to understand the viewpoint of their creators.

B2.1 Look at a particular data set related to migration patterns and generate new questions that can be answered by the data set

B2.2 Electoral college maps tell one kind of story about US presidential elections: which states voted for a certain candidate. Students can look through electoral college maps, choosing one from a certain area, and do research on why the map appears as it does. What is surprising about the map? What trends can you pick out? What doesn’t the map tell you?

B2.3 Compare and contrast different migration maps and explain how representations create bias