Development and Testing of "Geoscience Data Puzzles": Low-Barrier-to-Entry Data-Using Activities

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Development and Testing of "Geoscience Data Puzzles": Low-Barrier-to-Entry Data-Using ActivitiesThis award is being used to design and test a form of data-using activity for middle- and high school students that presents a low barrier-to-entry for teachers and a high ratio of insight-to-effort for students. These "Data Puzzles" stress the challenge and reward of answering questions and solving problems through using data. Data Puzzles use carefully-selected snippets of authentic geoscience data, can be solved in 15 minutes to an hour, draw on quantitative reasoning and knowledge of Earth processes, offer discovery moments when a pattern or trend or solution emerges from the data, and are accompanied by a rich pedagogical content knowledge document for teachers. Properly constructed Data Puzzles will serve as a bridge into the power of teaching with data for teachers who themselves have little or no experience in using data to answer questions or solve problems and, if permeated through the curriculum, offer frequent data-using opportunities for teachers who are already comfortable using data. A test suite of Data Puzzles is being investigated through an in-service professional development program that includes a large proportion of underserved communities and populations that are underrepresented in science. Two cohorts of teachers, one with substantial inquiry and data analysis expertise and the other with no significant experiences working with data, will be used to test and review the six Data Puzzles being created as part of this award.