Tina from the Lesley CMA teamed up with the leaders of Enroot, an after school program for high school students in Somerville and Cambridge, to build a set of activities to engage around data in the media. Students begin by comparing different representations of polling data for the presidential election, including considering how bias of the source might effect their decisions on how to present the data. Then they analyze a poorly made graph to see how the decisions made influence people’s conclusions. Finally, students are invited to choose a set of data they’d like to analyze and make different representations that tell different stories. The activities are set up to support students who are not fluent in English by having a staff member in each breakout room, as Enroot is a program for students who are immigrants. You may need to modify the structure to adapt for your student population.
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