San Diego Students win Creative Storytelling award at National Data Science Program
October 19, 2021 | San Diego, CA
“YDSL changed the way I see the world. I now see new data in all corners of the world.”
By Chelsea Xian and the YDSL Team - We’re excited to feature two of our students from Marston Middle School (Isabella and Daniela, advised by math teacher Ms. Trang Vu) who won the Most Creative Storytelling award in the 2021 Young Data Scientists Quest (YDSQ), a new nationwide program introducing students grades 6 and above to data science in preparation for future careers and personal life. YDSQ was a 10-week program that challenged students to learn and apply data science skills to build a project on an issue they were passionate about.
“The potential impact of our project is to inform people about the evolution of dance.” - Isabella and Daniela, Marston MS
Using Data to Uncover the History of Dance
Daniela and Isabella set out to investigate the topic of dances through the years in their project Celebrating 100 Years of Dance. To determine what dances were most popular, the two students collected data across a variety of dance websites. As they explained, “if a majority of the sources say one dance is the most popular, then we would choose that one to talk about”. The students then put together an illustrative collage featuring popular dances in the U.S. from each decade. Their project also included data trends they found on dance employment, health, and salary.
Our panelists (which included data scientists from Google, Columbia, and Tableau) described their project as “a fantastic (!) example of using data context to tell a compelling story over time” and judges “loved the way they told the story of their project through engaging visuals”. Isabella and Daniela’s project went on to win the Most Creative Storytelling award from among a field of over 120 fellow participants.
Data Science is a Group Project
In reflecting on the program, Isabella and Daniela articulated that “It took a lot of after school hours, and hard work, dedication, and team building, but we found that communication is key when finding data, on whatever you are passionate about… learning about data science along with working and interacting amongst other students, advisors and YSDL team members was very fun and interesting. Everyone was very respectful and supportive of each other's ideas which is something that we really liked about the YDSL program.”
Clearly, the process of teamwork with experts and fellow students is just as important as learning when it comes to data science! Since YDSL has a strong emphasis on fostering a collaborative environment, we were thrilled to see that the Marston students both enjoyed working on their project and teamwork played such an important role.
According to their advisor Ms. Trang Vu, data science could also be used to increase student engagement in math classrooms. “I am glad that Isabella and Daniela chose Dance as their topic. They saw that math can be a creative, enjoyable, and relevant subject. [Through the project] I gained a deeper insight into how data science is applied in real-life settings, and the resources YDSL provided could be used to build, enrich, and extend our current math curriculum”, said Ms. Vu.
Calling All Future Young Data Scientists
We were inspired by our conversation with the Marston team. After chatting with them, we reached out to YDSL’s student leaders to get their top tips on common data science questions from curious prospective students. Here is what they said:
Q: How would data science help an individual like me?
A: Data helps us understand the world around us, and empowers us to tell our story. It is not a replacement for lived experiences, but it can help us spot and quantify trends to generate further discussion. YDSL’s mission is to provide every student with the pathways and motivation to use data to shape our world in diverse, creative, and ethical ways.
Q: Why is data science needed?
A: Data provides a powerful way to answer impactful questions by looking at patterns and trends. Data Science gives us tools we can use to tell our stories to a broader audience.
Q: How can data science help people in general?
A: Data can help people through allowing us to find patterns among everyday occurrences, which in turn can help us find causes and solutions to various issues.
As for final thoughts, our students articulated that “overall, [they] had an amazing experience” with our program and “in the future, [they] can use the skills that [they] learned at YDSL to solve many different problems.”
Congratulations to Marston Middle School on winning the Creative Storytelling award and a special thank you to all our teams that participated last season!
YDSQ 2022 is now open for registration! To apply, click here.
