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It has been a long and productive year for the DS4E Coalition! We are so proud of all of the progress our coalition-members have made throughout the year. We are thankful for our members for continuously supporting the mission to expand access to data science education to all K-12 students! To show how far we've come, we’ve gathered updates from some of our coalition-members who joined the 2021 Commitments Campaign. Read below to learn about their impact, and what’s next for 2022! We will be launching the 2022 Commitments Campaign this March at SXSW EDU. You can share updates on your Commitments or work with us at any time via info@datascience4everyone.org or on Slack. BiFrost Bridge Studios is developing a digital whiteboard animation series on data science literacy for children. Big Picture Learning is looking for Data Scientists to add to their mentorship program. Mentors will have the opportunity to engage with youth (locally or virtually) who share similar interests. Sign up to be a mentor here. BSCS Science Learning launched a series of Live Zoom events dedicated to their Inquiry with FieldScope lesson plans, which encourage students to work with data. Learn more here. Chris Garrigues from Pendleton School District in Oregon presented at the Oregon Math Leaders conference and is writing articles for The Oregon Math Teacher (TOMT) journal on new data reasoning standards. TOMT is the journal of the Oregon Council of Teachers of Mathematics, octm.org, shared with permission. Read the article here. DataCamp for Classrooms is now free for US and UK teachers! Learn more about the program’s features here. Dataspire Education & Evaluation LLC partnered with school districts and universities like DS4E coalition-member SUNY Fredonia throughout the year to assist with the integration of data science literacy curriculum in grades 5-12 across disciplines. Learn more about their partnerships here. Edjacent is offering a free mini-course on “Developing Children’s Data Literacy.” Read their recent blog and visit their website here to learn more. edX developed 25 free online courses that cover data science topics, and had over 580,000 learners enrolled in their data analysis and statics course since September. Learn about the courses here. Frederick County Public Schools (VA) is partnering with CodeVA on data science tools training options, as well as hosting webinars and creating micro-credentials! Georgia State University recently received a $5 million donation to help support their goal of delivering online, self-paced courses that provide micro-credentials in data science to pre-service and in-ser­vice K-12 teachers, locally and nationally. Learn about the donation here. Just Equations collected student impact stories about their K-12 STEM learning experiences and what got them excited about pursuing data science. Hear from some of these students at Just Equations: The Mathematics of Opportunity National Conference in March. Learn more here. Mathigon developed Polypad, which is a virtual playground that encourages students to use data science in different ways. They’ve added brand new data science features, including tables, charts, and probability tools like dice, playing cards and spinners to help students visualize data. Try it out here. Maryland State Department of Education is working to develop an online Data Science course that is accessible to all students. National Science Foundation hosted the Data Science in Education town hall meeting which explored ways to teach and learn data science, ethical practices, research, and more. Read more about their work here. NetApp’s Data Explorers program finished its first year in India and North Carolina! The program encourages students to get creative with using data sets to solve problems grounded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The program is expanding to new countries and students next year. To learn more, visit their website here. North Carolina State University Data Science Academy is increasing the number of Data Science courses for the 2022 school year, including a Preparing the Data Science Professor and Practitioner program. To learn more, visit their website here. San Diego Unified School District is continuing their district-wide rollout of their K-12 Data Science education program, with intent to reach over 120k students across 168 TK-12 schools by 2023! Learn about the courses here. San Francisco 49ers & SAP have added Data Science to their Virtual Lesson Series which fits K-8 academics. Teachers & schools are encouraged to apply. To learn more, visit their website here. State University of New York at Fredonia is integrating data and data science in their elementary science courses for pre-service teachers for the 2022 school year. The Eedi Organization has developed a group dedicated to Data Science in Education with over 250 members! The group hosts meetups that involve talks by data scientists from edtech companies or research. Join the group here. The Young Data Scientists League had 120 students participate in the 2021 Young Data Scientist Quest. The program introduced students to data science in preparation for future careers and taught them how data science can be used to solve real-world problems in their personal lives and communities. Learn about the program’s impact here. Utah State Board of Education has developed a micro-credential and mentoring program for teachers interested in data science education and have already awarded multiple teachers their Data Science Microcredential since its release in July. View more here. Be on the lookout for more on our 2022 Commitments Campaign to make your commitments for the new year!

By Steven D. Levitt In this op-ed, "Freaknomics" co-author, Steven Levitt, highlights the importance of K-12 Data Science education to better prepare students for the 21st-century workforce. Learn about the changes San Diego's school district has implemented to increase student's access to data science and improve their data literacy. He also mentions the Data Science for Everyone coalition, and the work of our annual Commitments! Read the op-ed in the San Diego tribune here. (Image credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

CHICAGO, IL - The Data Science for Everyone (DS4E) Coalition is pleased to announce the winners of the first-ever Bite-Sized Data Science Lesson Plan Competition: 1st Place: “The Thrills of Roller Coasters: Using Data to Make Recommendations,” by Hollylynne Lee, Gemma Mojica, Emily Thrasher, Zachary Vaskalis, Bruce Graham. 2nd Place: “A Tale of Two Graphs: Education and Immigration In the U.S.,” by Ian McMeeking. 3rd Place: “The Banana Survey Project,” by Ned Diamond. Additionally, find our excellent honorable mention submissions here. The DS4E Bite-Sized Data Science Lesson Plan Competition seeks high-quality, easy-to-teach, data-science related lesson plans for middle school and high school classrooms. We reached out to teachers, principals, educational organizations, school districts, state departments of education, and others working close to students. The winning submissions are inspirations of how data science could be taught and have huge potential to be scaled throughout the country. In the following week, DS4E is proud to invite the winners to conversations with leading stakeholders and decision-makers in the movement, as well as provide technical assistance to implement their lesson plans in classrooms worldwide. Starting next week, we will feature top submissions on our website and throughout the Freakonomics network. For more information about the Bite-Sized Lesson Plan Competition, please visit https://www.datascience4everyone.org/post/enter-the-bite-sized-lesson-plan-competition About DS4E The Data Science for Everyone Coalition is a national coalition born out of the University of Chicago Center for RISC. DS4E houses a growing national movement to achieve system-wide policy and programmatic changes that expand access to data science education in K-12. Join us on Slack! Contact: Gabrielle Torrance [gtorrance@uchicago.edu], Fumika Mizuno [fmizuno@uchicago.edu], April Feng [aprilfeng@uchicago.edu]

The Data Science for Everyone Coalition and the Center for RISC have officially launched the first ever Bite-Sized Data Science Lesson Plan Competition! Teachers and educators can submit their ideas for a lesson plan that teaches students about data science topics or uses data science concepts to promote learning in other fields. Lessons can be for any grade and should be “bite-size”, or teachable in 1 to 3 hours. Winners will join the first cohort of bite-sized lesson plan creators, whose submissions could be implemented in classrooms nationwide! Submissions are open now through October 29. Learn more here and submit your proposed lesson plan(s) here. Winner(s) will be announced November 8th. Our mission is to find great data science lesson plans and make them useful for students worldwide. We’re excited to see what you submit. Good luck!

Senator Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, and Jeff Merkley are leading the way on Capitol Hill to advance data science education! Read more about their letter, signed by 10 members of Congress, to the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences Read more from Senator Padilla’s Office and Senator Booker’s Office.

Data science and the NFL?! The San Francisco 49ers and SAP are growing the next generation of STEAM professionals. They have added a data science lesson - that any K-8 teacher can use - to their Virtual Lesson Series. This new lesson demonstrates the important role of data collection and analysis in the game, and the business, of football. We're thrilled to see this DS4E Commitment in action. Read more here.

Originally broadcast on Freakonomics Radio, Steve Levitt's new People I (Mostly) Admire podcast is weighing in on why America's Math Curriculum Doesn't Add Up. America's Math Curriculum Doesn't Add Up on People I (Mostly) Admire. Click here to listen. Steve reports on a passion of his. Most high-school math classes are still preparing students for the Sputnik era. Steve wants to get rid of the “geometry sandwich” and instead have kids learn what they really need in the modern era: data fluency. Originally broadcast on Freakonomics Radio, this episode includes an update from Steve about how Data Science for Everyone is setting out to revamp the education system.

DataCamp has a new mission to offer the platform for free to secondary and postsecondary teachers and students around the world. Since 2016, DataCamp for Classrooms has seen usage in over 23,000 classrooms, reaching more than 500,000 active college and university learners to date. As part of their 2021 Data Science for Everyone Commitment, DataCamp recently announced that DataCamp for Classrooms is available to all high schools across the US and UK with plans to expand to more countries, starting with Belgium later this year. Teachers and their students get free Professional access to the platform. Read more here.

By: Nadia Tamez-Robledo Data Science for everyone was recently highlighted in an article by EdSurge! The article features our very own Steve Levitt and Jeffrey Severts and recounts how a Freakonomics Radio episode focused on how to ​​better prepare students for our modern economy began a movement. “We feel like this is a good foundational education that prepares people for life,” says Jeffrey Severts, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change at the University of Chicago. The center houses Data Science for Everyone, an initiative that provides teaching resources on and promotes data science curriculum in K-12 schools.” Read more here.

By: Allegra Armas The math curriculum taught to today’s high school students is out of sync with the current landscape and our everyday use of technology. The 49ers and SAP have partnered and are committed to supporting and offering educational data resources for K-12 students so they obtain the data literacy skills needed to flourish in our modern economy. “We can each play a role with bringing this movement to life. Individuals can make their own personal commitment to help ensure that students have access to data literacy skills.” Read more here.

By: Shia Kapos Ken Griffin, the Chicago billionaire and campaign donor, is teaming up with former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, but it’s not for anything political. Griffin is lead funder of Data Science for Everyone, a national initiative to advance data literacy in K-12 schools. "In the 21st century, data science literacy is a foundational building block of a well-rounded education. It unlocks our ability to see and understand the world," Griffin said in a statement about the project. "This pathbreaking initiative will equip generations of students with the analytical skills they need to compete in any field they choose.” Read more here.

Business, Technology and Education Leaders Launch New Coalition to Make Data Science Education a National Priority Ken Griffin, Steve Levitt, Arne Duncan and others come together to elevate data science in K-12 education WASHINGTON, D.C. – A cross-sector group of individuals and organizations from education, business, philanthropy and technology today announced a new coalition to prioritize data science in K-12 education. Known as Data Science for Everyone, the coalition is incubated at the University of Chicago’s Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change and funded by Citadel Founder and CEO and philanthropist Ken Griffin and Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt. Over the next year, Data Science for Everyone will focus on engaging states and districts in meaningful curriculum and policy reform. To that end, the coalition has launched a Commitments Campaign through which companies, districts, higher education institutions and policymakers have pledged to take specific and measurable steps to advance access to data science education for all children. Those commitments, along with opportunities to get involved, will be highlighted at a public virtual launch event on June 28. Inaugural members of the coalition include: Ken Griffin, Founder and CEO of Citadel Arne Duncan, Former U.S. Secretary of Education Jo Boaler, Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education Kumar Garg, Managing Director and Head of Partnerships, Schmidt Futures Steve Levitt, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, Author of the best-selling book “Freakonomics” and Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow “In the 21st century, data science literacy is a foundational building block of a well-rounded education. It unlocks our ability to see and understand the world," said Ken Griffin, lead funder of Data Science for Everyone. "This pathbreaking initiative will equip generations of students with the analytical skills they need to compete in any field they choose.” “Computers and big data have revolutionized the world, but if you looked inside a math classroom today, you would have no idea that transformation ever occurred,” said Steve Levitt, author of “Freakonomics” and Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow. “We simply need an update to the curriculum, and we should support our teachers in every way possible to move in that direction. Especially as we rebuild from the pandemic, this disruption is also an opportunity to reimagine how and what we teach.” “Data will guide our students' futures, but it is practically absent from their K-12 school experience right now. It is imperative that students understand how to explore, ask questions of, and tell the stories in data they encounter in their lives,” said Chad Dorsey, president of the Concord Consortium and an inaugural member of the coalition. “Building that ability must start now, and should occur for all students, across all grades and subject areas.” “This past year we have seen how important it is for every American to understand data, whether it’s morbidity rates during the pandemic, statistics underlying election polls, or science supporting climate change,” said Kumar Garg, Managing Director and Head of Partnerships at Schmidt Futures. “It’s past time we give our children the opportunity to use data to understand and begin solving the problems around them.” Leaders of Data Science For Everyone have already met with the Department of Education to outline the coalition’s priorities and emphasize the critical importance of data science expertise to economic growth and workforce development. This follows a letter sent to President Joe Biden earlier this year by more than 160 education leaders, policymakers, academics, and industry partners—which included several coalition members—urging his administration to elevate data science education in the nation’s schools. Though data science is one of the country’s fastest growing occupations with 37 percent growth annually, few states or school districts ensure that students graduate high school with a basic command of data and only 11 percent of high school students even take a statistics course. Data Science for Everyone is committed to changing that. To learn more about Data Science for Everyone and read the letter sent to the Biden-Harris Administration, please visit www.datascience4everyone.org.