Dealing with scientific data can be challenging and intimidating to the inexperienced.

 Technology can bring unprecedented amounts of information directly to students and teachers in the classroom  Real world data adds meaning to in class activities  Few materials and resources are needed  Data and graph interpretation are required (TEKS) and needed (TAKS) skills.  Helps students develop critical thinking skills

 Students become lost in the information they see, failing to learn domain concepts or “discovering” false ones.  Students use only a small, pre-determined subset of the available data, and so do not develop skills and habits for making sense of complexity.  Students have difficulty relating data to real world situations.

Need for structure Opportunities for freer exploration

Pre-design small data set and expand with models and images to provide insight into what data represent Pre-design large data set to develop expertise with specific case studies Query much larger data set and allow students to generate questions about the data

 Graphing  Interpreting data and graphs  Drawing conclusions  Supporting conclusions with evidence  Identifying relationships  Discovering patterns  Making predictions  Modeling data

Design an inquiry activity using data sets from the IRC or data sets of your choosing. Be sure the lesson has practical value within your scope and sequence.