CRII: CHS: Developing Youth Data Literacies through a Visual Programming Environment

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This research investigates blocks-based programming with everyday information as a vehicle for teaching secondary school youth data science skills. Professional opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and beyond increasingly require abilities for making sense of data. These skills require literacies involving data collection, processing, visualization, and analysis. This project investigates new ways to foster these data literacies in middle and high-school-aged students. New software and educational material will be publicly available for learners and educators to use. Workshops for youth will involve the Teen Science Café, run by the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center. Through this investigation, the project is expected to advance knowledge of how to support youth in developing data-centric problem-solving skills, while enabling them to program with everyday information.A data-focused, visual block-based programming environment will be created. The environment will enable students to manipulate and experience everyday data sources with filtering and information visualization. This programming environment will be developed iteratively through formative research studies involving young people. Qualitative and quantitative results from these studies will be used to both improve the design of the system, as well as to create new knowledge addressing misconceptions and difficulties that kids experience as they engage with data concepts and practices. The goal of this project is to have young people invent and develop their own data tools, rather than only use them. It is expected to advance scientific understanding of (1) design principles and best practices for creating visual, block-based data programming toolkits that can engage youth with diverse interests in programming with data; and (2) misconceptions and difficulties faced by youth while learning to program with data.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.