Using Photographs as Data Sources to Tell Stories About Our Favorite Outdoor Spaces
Pip Arnold, Sheri Johnson, and Leticia Perez all started with the same initial prompt: Use photographs as data. The result? Three lesson plans that show it is possible to take an idea and develop it to best suit the interests of your students and you. All three lessons are aimed at the grades 6–9. You may like to work with one lesson plan or pick elements of all three to use with your students. These lesson plans are discussed further in the HDSR article Using Photographs as Data Sources to Tell Stories.
Using Technology to Create Data Elements – Leticia Perez In this lesson, students explore how photographs can be processed to provide insight about and data for their favorite outdoor space. Following an initial student survey about the details of their favorite outdoor space, students develop methods to collect additional data from the photographs submitted by their classmates.
Using CODAP to Tell Different Stories – Sheri Johnson This lesson considers students’ favorite outdoor spaces and walks them through the statistical problem-solving process from beginning to end, where they develop and expand a statistical investigative question and create a single survey to collect data. After administering the survey to their classmates, they work in small groups to answer the statistical investigative questions by analyzing and interpreting the results. CODAP (common online analysis platform), a free web-based educational software for data analysis, is used to analyze the data and develop statistical concepts.
Questioning Throughout the Statistical Problem-Solving Process – Pip Arnold This lesson uses photographs as data to tell a story about the class’s favorite spaces. Students pose statistical investigative questions to explore favorite outdoor spaces, collect data from the class using data-collection questions, generate analysis questions, and share a story (interpret results) about the class’s favorite outdoor spaces. The activity allows for a variety of investigations, limited only by the students’ imaginations.
Download Lesson Plans (PDF)
Using Technology to Create Data Elements
