Data Science with a Purpose: Designing and Teaching an Innovative, Interdisciplinary Data Science Course

In today’s data-driven world, students benefit from acquiring data literacy skills even before they get to college. While more and more schools recognize this fact, there is little guidance on developing or teaching such a course. In collaboration with two other teachers at her school, the author of this article designed and implemented an innovative, interdisciplinary data science course for high school students at Dana Hall School, an independent boarding and day school for girls grades 5–12 in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Currently in its third year, the course introduces students to principles, practice, and ethics of data analysis, and teaches implementing data analysis in R. Throughout, students work on developing the necessary habits of the mind of a data scientist (e.g. iterative thinking, design thinking, implementing peer and expert feedback, collaborating with peers, communication skills). This article details the need for introducing such a course at the pre-collegiate level, and covers the main principles of designing and teaching it. The scope and sequence of the course is available as a supplemental file.