Data Nuggets | Bringing authentic research and data into K-16 classrooms

Featured Data Nugget: Grasshopper mice feed on two different species of scorpions - one with a painful sting and one that is painless. Will the mice choose to avoid the scorpions with the painful sting?
Featured Data Nugget: When is a mutualism not a mutualism? Under certain environmental conditions, such as soils with high nitrogen, Rhizobia may become parasites to plants.
Featured Data Nugget: Climate change is causing waters to warm, and species will need to adapt to survive. Do salmon have the genes necessary to survive in these new conditions?
Featured Data Nugget: Corn is used to produce most of the biofuels that humans consume today, but it does not make a good habitat for wildlife. Can diverse prairies serve as a viable alternative?
Featured Data Nugget: The world's coral reefs are home to a large diversity of plants and animals, and are threatened by climate change. When the water gets too warm, some corals bleach and some can survive.
Featured Data Nugget: What can tree rings tell us about the past climate of Australia, and whether current weather patterns are changing due to climate change?
Featured Data Nugget: The Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest is home to the one of the longest running bird studies ever conducted! What can we learn about migratory bird populations from this unique long-term dataset?
Featured Data Nugget: Big wings allow butterflies to fly everywhere with ease. But you may wonder, why are the wings of some species so brightly colored?
Featured Data Nugget: Today more and more people are moving from rural to urban areas. This means that cities are becoming the primary places where many people experience nature and interact with wildlife.
Featured Data Nugget: People have hunted whales for over 5,000 years for their meat, oil, and blubber. Today, as populations are struggling to recover, they are faced with additional challenges due to climate change.
Featured Data Nugget: Male and female anole lizards are very different from one another. Natural selection from predators may drive these differences.
Featured Data Nugget: Floods are common events in streams with potentially beneficial and harmful effects on fish populations, like the cutthroat trout.
Featured Data Nugget: Extreme climate events, like hurricanes, are becoming more frequent and severe. When a hurricane hit the Caribbean, scientists seized the opportunity to observe natural selection by hurricanes.

Data Nuggets are free classroom activities, co-designed by scientists and teachers, designed to bring contemporary research and authentic data into the classroom. Data Nuggets include a connection to the scientist behind the data and the true story of their research. Each activity gives students practice working with “messy data” and interpreting quantitative information. Students are guided through the entire process of science, including identifying hypotheses and predictions, visualizing and interpreting data, making evidence based claims, and asking their own questions for future research. Because of their simplicity and flexibility, Data Nuggets can be used throughout the school year and across grades K-16, as students grow in their quantitative abilities and gain confidence. Data Nuggets have the potential to improve the understanding of science in society while engaging and motivating the next generation of scientists and engineers.