As part of Activity 4: Teaching and Training (First Cycle) of the Erasmus+ project DIRECTORS – DIgital data-dRiven EduCaTion fOR kidS, the TU Delft members of the project team followed suit and implemented their series of workshops in the Netherlands. The workshops were delivered by Assoc. Prof. Bastiaan van Loenen, Assist. Prof. Frederika Welle Donker, and Assoc. Prof. Hendrik Ploeger of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.
Similar to the structure of the Croatian workshops, the Dutch version also focused on three levels of data literacy: basic, moderate, and advanced data skills. TU Delft held the workshops at Primary School De Triangel (part of the Octant Group) in Delfgauw, a township near Delft. The workshops were conducted for 10-year-olds in two parallel groups (Group 7A and 7B). Group 7A attended Workshop 1 – basis data skills and Workshop 3 – advanced data skills. Group 7B attended Workshop 2 – moderate data skills. The six workshops consisted of two sessions about one week apart. In total, 44 pupils participated in the workshops, although not all of the pupils were able to attend all the sessions.
Group 7A: Basic Data Skills
In the first session, the children were introduced to the concept of data, what is data and what can we do with data? As a real-world example of data, the children created a data card with their mobile phone usage, they wrote down their favourite game, video channel, and social media app, and an estimate of how many minutes per day they spent on these apps. They then learned how to group and categorize these data by forming groups based on their favourite apps, discussing their estimated usage times, and adding these up per group. In the meantime, the instructor created a word cloud of the names of their favourite games. We showed them the differences between the raw version including all the spelling variations of the children, and a cleansed version in which the spelling mistakes were corrected. We discussed these different versions to provide the pupils with a feeling for the importance of data quality.
In the second session, the pupils learned how to collect real data from their mobile phones and enter these into one dataset. They explored the similarities and differences between the data of the entire class and their own data. They also compared their data usage estimates of the first session with the actual usage data recorded by their phones. They also learned how real-world data can be visualized in different ways. We also discussed whether they could tell from the anonymized dataset which pupil had actually entered which data, and the importance of protecting privacy when adding data to a shared dataset.
Group7B: Moderate data skills
In the first session, we explained the basics of GIS interactively. While explaining each aspect, the pupils could show examples on the orthophoto map of Delfgauw. We then divided the paper version of the map into 8 segments. The children were provided with transparencies on which each group of 2 to 3 pupils traced one specific layer (e.g., houses, roads, trees) of one segment. They had to label the object, such as ‘school’ or ‘playground’. The children combined the transparencies to recreate their version of the paper map. We discussed what was displayed on the map and we introduced the aspect of standardization as the children had different interpretations of how to visualize objects in each layer.
In the second session, the children applied their GIS skills to find a missing teacher. The children solved four puzzles with each solution providing one digit to the four-digit code needed to “crack” a safe containing the coordinates of the location for the next clue. The children used a mobile telephone to provide a walking route to the final clue. After a fun search, the children found the box that contained the coordinates to the location of the missing teacher, which happened to be their school. Most fun was that the teacher was actually really missing, and the children searched the lower level of the building in search of the teacher. Their efforts were rewarded by finding the teacher who had a box of treats for the pupils.
Group 7A: Advanced data skills
In the first session, we explained the concept of sensors and how they can be used for different purposes, e.g. measuring distances. The children used various methods to calculate the same distance. The first method was manually counting steps from one wall of the classroom to the opposite wall and then multiplying the number of steps by their stride length. Next, the pupils used the step counter in their mobile phones to “count” the number of steps and the telephone’s estimate of the distance. The third method was to use the step counter in a smartwatch. Finally, the pupils used a toilet roll to calculate the distance by measuring the length of one sheet and multiplying that by the number of sheets needed to cover the distance. The workshop concluded by a discussion on the differences in the outcomes using manual methods or devices. The pupils concluded that devices may be nice to use, but manual methods are more reliable.
In the second session, the pupils used tools to measure distances using apps such as Google Maps. The pupils had to measure the length of the circumference of their schoolyard. They had to verify these measurements by going outside to measure the same route using manual methods (counting steps) or record a track using a mobile device (telephone or smartwatch). The recorded tracks were collected and displayed on the screen. The pupils concluded that using devices for recording tracks may be nice for longer distances but again, they deemed the manual step counting to be more accurate. They also suggested that next time, we use a long tape measure.
