Small World Consulting

As I have mentioned before, building data literacy skills at every grade level is paramount as we all transition to this brave new world. In my experience, there is more attention to this practice in middle school and high school classrooms than in K – 5 classrooms, but I would argue we are still not challenging our young adult students with challenging enough and with different means of data representation. For several years now the Learning Network arm of the New York Times has been putting forward one graph from their reporting each week of the school year in a project they call, “What’s Going on in this Graph?”  (scroll down in the resource to search all published graphs). In the process, they have built up an impressive catalogue of engaging and relevant graphs that are easily searchable and easy to implement in the classroom. The project is part of a partnership with the American Statistical Association. The goal is to improve data literacy and to help students better see the relevance of data to their lives. While most graphs available won’t necessarily fit into a unit storyline, they are great tools to build students’ literacy, resilience and confidence when working with data. I also like to think of this as a valuable tool in a ‘back pocket’ toolkit for moments when we might find ourselves in need of an easy to implement and meaningful engagement for middle school or high school students. 

For a more detailed explanation, please read this excerpt from the statistics department of science and mathematics at Bailey College. They explain the resource much better than I do. 

“What’s Going On in This Graph is a partnership between The New York Times and the American Statistical Association. 

Each week during the school year, a graphical display that appeared in The New York Times is released and students of all ages are invited to think about what they can learn from the graph. They are asked to notice and wonder, to think about how the graph is relevant to them and their community, and to write a catchy headline that they think captures the information in the graph. 

This feature, part of the New York Times Learning Network, exposes students to a variety of different graphical displays and contexts, and allows them to reason about real world data that is displayed visually.

Students are able to post comments online at any time, and on Wednesday mornings there is an online moderated discussion where students can post comments, discuss with other students, and receive feedback from the moderators.”

California Polytechnic State University State . (n.d.). What’s going on in this graph? Statistics Department. https://statistics.calpoly.edu/news/whats-going-graph#:~:text=What’s%20Going%20On%20in%20This%20Graph%20is%20a%20partnership%20between,receive%20feedback%20from%20the%20moderators.