Activity Guide

Warm-ups

Warm ups are quick, fun, hands-on activities designed to start conversation, bring together creative ideas and build confidence to take the next step.

• Build a data sculpture

  This activity encourages you to think differently about how you approach data and explore different ways to communicate the same simple data set by building data sculptures with craft materials.

• Deconstruct a dataviz

  Telling stories with data is hard to do. It relies on a diverse set of skills - data processing, graphic design, storytelling, and more. This activity helps you build those skills by taking apart work that others have done (the good and the bad).

Activities

• Fill in a paper spreadsheet - (A good place to start)

  Before beginning to analyse and tell stories with data, you have to understand what data is and how to make sense of it. This activity provides an introduction to data, and each other.

• Ask good questions

  This activity helps you learn how to move from spreadsheet to story. You will use AskCSV to summarise your data so you can ask questions that will help you find the story to tell.

• Connect the Dots

  Network graphs can help you see the connections, or relationships, in your data. In this activity you will use Connect the Dots to present data in a network graph, allowing you to understand - and question - the relationship between data points.

• Sketch a story

  This activity will help you analyze text to find the data story. You will use Word Counter to analyze a singers lyrics and then sketch the story that you find.

• Write your own song

  This activity will teach you how algorithms can help you understand data in new ways. You will use SameDiff to compare two or more text files to see how similar or different they are and then write your own song based on the results.

• Make a word web

  When telling your data story, you have to present it in a way that makes it easy to understand. Visual imagery plays a key role in this. This activity explores how to translate your ideas into images by creating a word web.

• Remix an infographic

  This activity introduces you to data presentation techniques that are creative, fun, and better suited for certain audiences than traditional charts and maps. This will help you to become more confident in your ability to present data appropriately.

• Try to convince me

  In this activity, you will practice making data-driven arguments to persuade or influence decision making.

• Write a data story book

  In this activity you will practice writing data stories using creative narratives and visual storybooks.