Data Talks

These sessions encourage curiosity and questioning, helping students interpret the data-rich world around them.

Youcubed ‘Data Talks’ are short, 5-10 minute classroom discussions that aim to improve students’ data literacy by engaging them with different data visualisations. One example is discussed in more detail below – NASA Data Talk – Land Temperature. More Data Talks can be found on the website https://www.youcubed.org/resource/data-talks/

The Data Talks

• NASA Data Talk – Sea Level Rise
• Melting ice
• Deforestation

and others can be used for different age groups of students from this collection.

The Data Talk “Land Temperature” shows how much the earth has warmed. Three different forms of data visualisation are presented here.
You can find the download for an editable version here:

NASA Data Talk #1 (make a copy)

The students will notice that the distribution ‘wobbles back and forth like a jellyfish’:

A discussion of this and many other features that catch the students’ eye form the centrepiece of a Data Talk.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre provides many impulses for fruitful discussions on data sets about our Earth, for example here:
Sea level rise:

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11994/

It’s worth taking a look at the gallery to find valuable ideas for your own lessons:

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/the-galleries/