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AUGUSTA — The National Science Foundation has provided the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and its partner TERC in Massachusetts, a grant to design and test a model that will help middle-school aged youth in Maine and Massachusetts learn data science skills.
The grant is for materials for children at out-of-school programs and summer camps to work with real data sets. The co-principal investigators are Jan Mokros, of Augusta-based MMSA and and Andee Rubin of TERC.
Careers that range from those who map crime data for the Portland Police Department to workers who manage the inventory at L.L. Bean work with on-line big data sets, a news repelase from the organizations said.
The program will have 120 youth in rural Maine and Massachusetts using data sets. One example is animals at rescue shelters — the sets will help determine where the animals come from, what kind of animals are sheltered, how long they stay and who adopts them. Another may look at flood data to determine what areas of the country are most exposed to rapid water rise and what events precipitate flooding.
Partipating youths will have an opportunity to conduct their own data investigations and ask their own questions, using computer tools to explore existing data sets.
Because data science is such a new field, it is important to study how youth learn about it and engage in the processes of working with data, the release said. In the course of the project, the program will develop and use two assessment tools: an interview measure of data skills and statistical reasoning, and a survey measure of attitudes and dispositions towards data science.
For more information, visit mmsa.org.
