Building Insights through Observation

Building Insights through Observation is a project designed to advance our understanding of how science teachers can learn to incorporate arts-based teaching methods and visualizations of authentic science data into their pedagogical practices in order to improve students’ data literacy and critical thinking skills. This project uses geospatial visualizations along with arts-based pedagogies for observing visual features of data visualizations to develop critical thinking skills and practices required to effectively make meaning from scientific data.

Applying a design-based research framework that partners with teachers, this foundational research helps us understand the ways in which arts-based instructional methods and geospatial data visualization can be successfully applied by science teachers. The research examined: (1) the ways in which arts-based instructional methods can be successfully applied by STEM teachers; (2) critical elements in the process of learning and applying these techniques to influence teachers’ content, pedagogical, and technological knowledge; and (3) for which transferable data literacy skills these approaches show most promise with children. The research process includes data about teachers’ development and students’ learning about data literacy.

An adaptive digital toolbox is freely available to teachers to apply the framework to their curriculum. Example lessons are provided and resources for implementing the model for a range of earth and environmental topics are included.