EAGER: Home-based DIY Interactive Information Physicalization for Young Children and their Parents

新冠肺炎大流行期间的公共话语浮出水面，数据在塑造个人和社区行动方面发挥着核心作用。数据素养是对数据进行建设性推理的能力。培养数据素养在很大程度上一直是正规教育系统和专家工具的领域。非正式教育方法有可能通过随意参与来培养数据素养，从而克服与数据交互的障碍。这项研究探索了非正式学习如何通过创建和与物理数据表征(物理化)的交互来培养更高的数据素养和参与度。该项目团队将为幼儿设计一系列自己动手(DIY)的活动，以用家庭材料构建物理化。这些活动将使孩子们能够在家庭背景下探索新冠肺炎和其他数据。预计他们将通过具体化的数据、制造轰动效应和创造性的物理结构过程来帮助他们对大流行和日常信息进行推理。该项目通过促进普遍的数据理解来促进国家数据素养、健康和福利，从而服务于国家利益。它将直接支持教育，并通过向全国各地的家庭传播信息物理化工具包来促进多样性。由此产生的工具将以开源形式发布，以便其他研究人员、设计人员和开发人员可以将它们用于各种信息物理化项目。该项目将以新的物理和有形的表示和技术推动信息可视化领域的发展。通过参与式研讨会和访谈的迭代设计方法，有家庭参与，该项目将：(1)开发一个新颖的工具包和说明，供家庭使用常见的家庭材料和移动计算机建立交互式信息物理化；(2)将工具包与新冠肺炎和环境公民科学数据连接；(3)通过对视频和访谈数据的扎实理论分析，了解涉及儿童和家庭如何参与信息物理化的紧急现象；(4)评估信息物理化对数据素养的影响；以及(5)使用日常材料，发展对有形界面设计和制作的影响，以促进在非正式环境中引起轰动和学习。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Public discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced the central role data serves in shaping individual and community action. Data literacy is the ability to constructively reason with data. Fostering data literacy has largely been the domain of formal educational systems and expert tools. Informal educational approaches have the potential to overcome barriers to interacting with data by fostering data literacy through casual engagement. This research explores how informal learning, through creation and interaction with physical data representations (physicalizations), may foster increased data literacy and engagement. The project team will design a series of do-it-yourself (DIY) activities for young children to construct physicalizations from household materials. These activities will enable children to explore COVID-19 and other data in familial contexts. They are expected to help them reason about the pandemic and everyday information through embodied data sensemaking and creative processes of physical construction. This project serves the national interest by promoting universal data understanding to advance national data literacy, health, and welfare. It will directly support education and foster diversity by disseminating information physicalization kits to families across the nation. Resulting tools will be released as open source so that other researchers, designers, and developers can use them for diverse information physicalization projects.The project will advance the field of information visualization with new physical and tangible representations and techniques. Through an iterative design methodology of participatory workshops and interviews, involving families, the project will: (1) develop a novel toolkit and instructions for families to build interactive information physicalizations, using common household materials and mobile computers; (2) connect the toolkit to COVID-19 and environmental citizen science data; (3) understand emergent phenomena involving how kids and families engage with information physicalizations, through grounded theory analysis of video and interview data; (4) assess effects of the information physicalizations on data literacy; and (5) develop implications for the design and crafting of tangible interfaces, using everyday materials, which facilitate sensemaking and learning in informal settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.