DataJam News Archive
Workshop highlights need and opportunity for real-world data science project-based learning
The recent National Workshop on Data Science Education held in Berkeley showcased the importance of project-based learning in data science education. The event featured the DataJam competition, where high school student teams and their college mentors collaborate on research questions relevant to their communities. The article highlights the benefits of project-based programs like DataJam, such as developing practical data science skills, promoting ethical considerations, and creating workforce pipelines. The upcoming launch of the Data Science Experiential Pathways program aims to expand these opportunities and connect various institutions. Read the full article to learn more about the workshop and its implications for data science education!
Sarah Stone, Ashley Atkins, Judy Cameron, Catherine Cramer and Anthony Suen celebrate on June 22 in Berkeley, Calif., the upcoming launch of the Data Science Experiential Pathways program. (Photo/ Ashley Atkins)
North Allegheny High School DataJam Team 1 presented their project “Standardized Testing: A Reflection on Intelligence or Economic Environment?” at Google Pittsburgh on 5/24/23
Congratulations to the North Allegheny High School DataJam Team 1! As part of the First Place prize for the 2023 DataJam, the team was invited to give their DataJam project presentation to Google Pittsburgh on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. Check out their presentation and poster below!
Yunge Xiao, an Outstanding DataJam Mentor, wins a national award!
Yunge Xiao was the DataJam Mentor for the DataJam team that won the 2023 DataJam – North Allegheny Team 1, with their project “Standardized Testing: A Reflection on Intelligence or Economic Environment?”. She is also the winner of a prestigious national award, “The Newman Civic Fellowship”, that recognizes standout students who are committed to creating positive change in communities locally and around the world, proving them with a year of learning and networking opportunities that emphasize person, professional and civic growth.
Yunge graduated from the University of Pittsburgh this spring (2023) with a Bacholor’s degree in Statistics. She was born in Singapore but primarily grew up in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. She became very interested in using data for community change in her first year at Pitt when she interned for the Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance (HRCA) and Pittsburghers for Public Transit. She started serving as a DataJam mentor in the Fall of 2022, when she took the DataJam Mentor training course at Pitt, and she mentored the winning team in DataJam 2023: North Allegheny Team 1.
Yunge will begin a master’s degree in epidemiology at Harvard’s School of Public Health this Fall. The Newman Civic Fellowship will provide her with virtual training and networking opportunities to give her the skills and connections to create large-scale positive change for the world. We are so proud of Yunge, an outstanding DataJam Mentor and an outstanding data scientist --- using her training to improve the lives of those around her!
The DataJam is the winner of the 2022 Carnegie Science Award for “Best Interdisciplinary Approach to STEM Education”
The DataJam has been proactive in developing resources to encourage DataJam participation to a wide diversity of communities. Currently, both the DataJam and the university course that trains DataJam mentors, are being expanded nationwide using a collaborative blended simultaneous learning environment (BSLE) strategy. The collaborative, interdisciplinary approach will allow mentors to be trained in a variety of locations and receive increased training in how to facilitate high school teams participating in DataJam in under-resourced urban environments, rural environments, in immigrant communities and on Native American reservations. The awards ceremony will be October 13, 2022.
2023 High School DataJam Finale
The 2023 DataJam Finale as recorded on video conference on March 27th, 2023. Watch here as the students present all their hard work and findings by explicating hypotheses using data analysis!
Winning Teams
DataJam Goes National
By Ken Chiacchia | Aug 31, 2022
Student data-science competition adds teams outside Pittsburgh region, including from California Native American youth center and New Jersey schools.
2022 High School DataJam Finale
The 2022 DataJam Finale as recorded on video conference on April 28th, 2022.
Watch here as the students present all their hard work and findings by explicating hypotheses using data analysis!
Norwin High School DataJam Team presented their project “Analyzing the Legacy of Redlining in Pittsburgh” at PPG on 6/16/22
Congratulations to the Norwin High School DataJam Team! As part of the First Place prize for the 2022 DataJam, the team was invited to give their DataJam project presentation to the data analysts attending the PPG Digital Organization Town Hall on Thursday, June 16, 2022. Members of the team, Aaron Berger, Dmitri Berger and Rex Wu, accompanied by their teacher, Ciminy St. Clair, presented their project entitled “Analyzing the Legacy of Redlining in Pittsburgh” and fielded questions from members of the PPG data analytical team from around the world. Check out their poster above, and watch their presentation on the left!
Winning Teams
2021 High School DataJam Finale
The 2021 DataJam Finale as recorded on video conference on May 6th, 2021.
Watch here as the students present all their hard work and findings by explicating hypotheses using data analysis!
Winning Teams
Peters Township DataJam Presentation at PPG Industries
DataJam competition creates path for future data professionals, interested in discovering and exploring important community and societal topics with a head start on future education and career paths within data science fields. (2021)
Credit: Breanna Franchak, Pine Richland High School, and Cassidy Power, University of Pittsburgh
Making Data Lemonade
As the COVID-19 Pandemic steamrolls the nation, is isolation an Opportunity for Pittsburgh-Area High Schoolers to Learn Data Science? (2020)
What is the Covid-19 Project?
Pittsburgh DataWorks offered teens in the Pittsburgh region the opportunity to learn more about the COVID-19 pandemic and all the implications it may have on our world in the Spring of 2020!
Together we analyzed publicly available datasets that provided information on the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid-19; how the disease differentially affected people of different ages, different races and with various underlying medical problems; the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, businesses, schools and much more. We studied global trends, U.S. trends, and Allegheny County trends.
Students were encouraged to do analysis with groups of other students or on their own. We provided students with all the help and guidance needed, through our team of Data Analysis mentors. This gave students the opportunity to see how analytics is practiced in a real world application in real time.
By participating, students:
• learned what data is available related to the Covid-19 pandemic
• understood the uses and limitation of different data sources
• had the opportunity to discuss with others the different approaches to analyzing data relevant to the pandemic
• understood how different data tools can be used to manipulate data
• had the opportunity to discuss how data analyses can be used to make real world decisions
We used Slack for sharing data and having e-conversations, in addition to Zoom conferencing to talk together as a group on a regular basis. Teens joined us on these platforms to work on becoming data savvy and to learn much more about how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the world we live in!
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT: BREANNA AND CASSIDY
Left: An animation as the country was closing down state by state with the Covid-19 epidemic. This was made by a student, Breanna Franchak from Pine Richland high school working with Cassidy Power, a mentor.
THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY THE PPG FOUNDATION:
PPG Foundation grant helps high school students apply data-driven science to COVID-19
Creating a mathematical model to help predict the course of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Pennsylvania. Developing an interactive map to demonstrate how reduced travel in each state correlates with the number of new COVID-19 cases. While this may sound like the intricate work of professional data scientists, it is the product of high school students participating in Pittsburgh DataWorks projects such as the DataJam, a program offering hands-on data science experience and exploration into future career paths.
When Pittsburgh Dataworks, a nonprofit organization formed by software scientists and educators to help make Pittsburgh a “data-savvy” city, initially planned the annual DataJam competition, organizers couldn’t have anticipated the critical role data is currently playing to help the U.S. safely reopen amid the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Beginning in 2013, the DataJam competition was a collaborative project of Pittsburgh-area universities, companies and high schools. Today it’s a platform for student-led analysis projects examining a variety of topics including factors that affect a school districts success in educating students, factors that lead most often to 911 calls, the impact of various factors on obesity rates in a region, the influence of bike lanes on air quality --- a program funded by a grant from the PPG Foundation.
According to Devashish Saxena, vice president and chief digital officer, PPG, DataJam is a hands-on, concrete way to help students discover not just the process of data science, but the importance of it in aiding how decisions are made at all levels in government, organizations and companies all over the world.
On May 28, the virtual finale of DataJam included speaking remarks from data-industry leaders including Saxena.
“I was really impressed with the students’ ingenuity, and especially their openness in continuing to explore the data sets and what they were learning,” said Saxena. “The process of exploration is critical as it helps keep us open to learning new things.”
The PPG Foundation grant helped the 2020 DataJam to shift from an in-person competition to a virtual, project-led program and to expand its reach and remote access to additional students with a second project, the Pittsburgh DataWorks COVID-19 project. The COVID-19 was completely virtual and high school students from all over the greater Pittsburgh region were able to join videoconferences twice a week that focused on analyzing data relevant to various aspects of the COVID-19 epidemic, such as the mental health consequences, the impact on local Pittsburgh businesses, and the utility of the stay at home orders. The high schoolers participating in this project and their undergraduate mentors from the University of Pittsburgh connected via teleconference for weeks to study a number of factors in the COVID-19 pandemic.