We live in a world with unprecedented access to data and there is a growing expectation for data literacy. This project will teach students the basics of data collection, analysis, and visualization in the context of a specific set of research questions. The student will start by defining the scope of their question, then collecting and cleaning the appropriate data, which enables high-impact analysis, and will conclude students contracting compelling data-centric narratives.

Telling Stories Through Data

This project will teach students the fundamentals of R and data visualization. Students will identify 3-5 publicly available datasets and will work to design and execute insightful visualizations of that data in R. This project will predominately use the ggplot package in R.

Introduction to Data Visualization in R

There is myriad data available that illuminates issues of social justice--for example, bias in education, socioeconomic factors and inequality, or policing during traffic stops. This project contains 4 key components: (1) designing a research questions that has social relevance, (2) identifying and collecting data to answer the question, analyzing that data, and (3) creating a report and/or narrative to communicate results, and (4) designing possible solutions. The possible deliverables of this project include a podcast (either scripted or interview-based), a research paper, or website.