This post is by MSU postdocs Liz Schultheis and Melissa Kjelvik. See the original article on the BEACON webpage (reproduced below):

Liz modeling the process of science within a Data Nugget.

Back when we were biology graduate students, the GK-12 program at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) exposed us to science education for the first time. When we signed up to work with K-12 teachers and go into schools as the “classroom scientist” we knew there would be benefits, such as time to hone our science communication skills, a venue to share our research with broad audiences, and of course saving us the hour and a half drive to MSU’s main campus to TA. However, we had no idea what we had really gotten ourselves into.

We were each assigned a partner teacher whose classroom we would visit a few times a week, and who would mentor us as we attempted to share our research with students for the first time. The experience of standing up in front of 30 sixth graders was intimidating at first. Yet, it was necessary to realize how hard it was to simplify and explain a topic, while also making it engaging for an audience who may never have thought about these ideas before. The teachers’ infectious enthusiasm boosted the passion we had for our research. They pushed us to describe why the things we were doing day-to-day mattered for the big picture. They were willing to stand in the back of the classroom and wave their arms when students checked out because we’d used too much jargon or started to nerd-out. These teachers had such a clear passion for improving student learning; they constantly stepped out of their comfort zone to try new ways to improve their teaching and integrate the latest effective science teaching strategies into their classrooms. Working with these teachers and their students quickly became our favorite time of the week.

These same teachers originally inspired Data Nuggets; they shared that their students were struggling to make sense of data in most applications, but especially data from classroom inquiry projects that turned out messy or did not follow predictions. Students should not feel they have failed when their data has variation around the mean or does not support their hypothesis. Typically, students are only exposed to research and data published in textbooks, leading to the misconception that all science is a completed product with well established ideas and clear results. To get students to think like scientists, they need to be exposed to the process of science itself and how scientists work to develop, test, and refine their ideas. As early-career scientists, we knew that along the way, experiments often fail or yield unexpected results.

Melissa running a professional development workshop for high school math and science teachers.

For continued support, we turned to BEACON, whose education objectives align with the Data Nuggets vision. Using these seed funds, we were able to work with Louise Mead and other BEACON scientists to develop Data Nuggets that connect students to real data and the motivation and passion of the scientists behind the research. Today we have 46 Data Nuggets (and counting) up on our website, freely available to teachers and students, many written by women and early career scientists.

As we wrapped up as graduate students, we realized there was so much more we wanted to do to improve and expand Data Nuggets. The support from BEACON allowed us time to fully develop our ideas and submit an NSF DRK-12 grant with Louise. As BEACON postdocs we are excited to have time to integrate all these great ideas into Data Nuggets. The main objective of the collaborative NSF DRK-12 grant, between MSU and Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS), is to assess whether Data Nuggets increase students’ quantitative reasoning abilities, along with their understanding of, and engagement with, science. In preparation for this efficacy study, we are currently revising each Data Nugget and integrating new ideas and feedback from our collaboration.

High school math and science teachers working to complete a Data Nugget during a professional development workshop.

This summer we worked with 4 teachers – Marcia Angle, Cheryl Hach, Ellie Hodges, and Kristy Campbell. Marcia and Cheryl have been with us since the beginning, and were among those who first helped us develop Data Nuggets. They were thrilled to see that we continued to develop Data Nuggets and were happy with how far they’d come since the original inception. This summer we had many insightful conversations about students’ struggles with certain scientific practices, including data interpretation and constructing explanations. The teachers shared their different teaching strategies, and researched new ones, in order to write guides to help other teachers cover these difficult topics. As a group we read through student responses to Data Nuggets piloted in the spring. This was a powerful way to think deeply about the areas students could improve, and ways for us to provide more context in our teacher guides to encourage rich classroom discussions. Along with BEACON postdoc Alexa Warwick, the teachers developed a grading rubric to help teachers score Data Nuggets and identify areas where their students need more practice. While reading student responses, the teachers collectively noticed that students had a difficult time using evidence to support their claims, so they worked on a new tool to ease students into this process. They presented this tool, along with other strategies, at professional development workshops for the KBS K-12 partnership teachers and all Kalamazoo Public Schools high school science teachers.

This year we are finalizing preparations for our Data Nugget efficacy study, taking place in 2017. Preliminary observations in classrooms, and feedback from teachers, indicate Data Nuggets effectively increase students’ quantitative and scientific literacy while engaging them with the story behind the research and building a connection to scientists. However, as scientists, we are of course not satisfied with anecdotal evidence and want data to support our claims! We are excited for the upcoming study to determine the ways in which Data Nuggets might contribute to a strong science education curriculum!

Advice on how to use the Claims-Evidence-Reasoning framework in your classroom intentionally. Session presented with two Michigan science teachers, Marcia Angle and Cheryl Hach.

Session Description: In our session we will talk about the transition of science education away from memorization of facts and more towards the application of applying critical thinking and quantitative reasoning. We will discuss the importance of scaffolding student learning centered on the scientific principles of investigation, student discourse, and will unveil our new graphic CER organizer that we designed to support student writing when it comes to Claim, Evidence and the oh so difficult Reasoning portions of science writing. We use Data Nuggets throughout the session to model how you can integrate our CER tool into the classroom and increase the amount of data analysis and interpretation done in your classroom. This session is for upper elementary, middle and high school teachers whose students struggle with quantitative skills and CER writing. Our little nuggets can do great things!

• Workshop slides
• Claims-Evidence-Reasoning Writing Tool
• Revised Rubric
• Example Student Responses for “Won’t you be my urchin?” Data Nugget

Workshop Description: In this workshop we demonstrated how to use our current Data Nugget resources in the classroom. We took an in depth look at the big themes present in these activities, including distinguishing hypotheses from predictions, using claim-evidence-reasoning structure to help students construct explanations, and modeling the process of science followed in real research. Finally, we shared our exciting plans for testing the efficacy of Data Nuggets at increasing student quantitative literacy, understanding of science, and motivation to pursue careers in science.

• Workshop slides
• Data Nugget publication – Schultheis & Kjelvik 2015
• Quantitative Reasoning (QR) Teacher Scenarios
• Process of Science Flowchart
• Sexy Smells and Shoot the Poop hypotheses underlined
• Hypothesis publication – Strode 2015
• Constructing explanations (CER) tool

Participants: Judy Selig, Matthew Schuchman, Paula Fernes, AnneMarie Giles, Lisa Brosnick, Trevor Tripp, Eun Mi Heo, Annie Chien, Linda Rose, Karin Marcotullio, Darlene Nichols, Michelle Van Steele, and Amanda Huszar.

Data Nuggets will be presented at the National Academies Special Topics Summer Institute on Quantitative Biology on June 20th.

To see the event on Facebook, click here.

The Data Nugget “9 piece” team – developing new activities to bring real data into undergraduate classrooms! From left to right: Melissa Kjelvik, Jodi Forrester, Elizabeth Schultheis, Vedham Karpakakunjaram, Michelle Fisher, and Aditi Pai (not pictured: Kristine Grayson, Jim Smith, Bob Mayes)All the participants at the QUBES/BioQuest working group!

The original blog post can be found on the KBS LTER website here.

Each year the KBS LTER program awards graduate students summer fellowships. Here Elizabeth Schultheis and Melissa Kjevik, now both postdoctoral researchers with Michigan State University, describe the project their summer fellowship supported.

Today it is apparent that students and the public continue to struggle when faced with data and its interpretation. When asked to make sense of data taught in their science classrooms, gathered during classroom inquiry projects, or found in the news, students are unable to connect quantitative information to explanations of the way the world works. Without exposure and practice, a large dataset or complicated graph can seem insurmountable. In collaboration with K-12 teachers, the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) GK-12 program, BEACON, and the LTER, we created Data Nuggets to help students overcome roadblocks when working with and interpreting data.

Data Nuggets are targeted classroom activities focused on developing quantitative skills for K-16 students. They are created from recent and ongoing research, bringing cutting edge science into the classroom and helping scientists share their work with broad audiences. The standard format of each Data Nugget provides background information about a scientist and their research, along with how they became interested in their research questions and system that they study. Each Data Nugget includes a real dataset for students to graph, interpret, and use to construct an explanation.

Scientist Mélanie Banville searching for reptiles in the Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER. Her and Heather Bateman’s Data Nugget, “Lizards, Iguanas, and Snakes! Oh My!”

LTER Data Nuggets

The collaboration between Data Nuggets and the LTER is a mutually beneficial fit. LTER scientists help strengthen the Data Nuggets project by increasing the diversity of data and research available to students. In turn, Data Nuggets provide an avenue for LTER scientists to share their work and findings with a broad audience of students, teachers, and fellow scientists. Sharing research findings with the non-science public is an important part of the science process, yet is often one of the most challenging to achieve. With broader impacts a factor in most grants, finding effective methods of communication and transmission is key. Researchers who create Data Nuggets must dig deep to uncover the core messages of their research and think back to the big question that got them passionate about the research in the first place. Also, by creating a Data Nugget and practicing communicating research to a 6th grader, scientists can rest assured that at their next conference they’ll be better able to discuss their work with collaborators and those outside their field!

Researcher Sam Bond taking Sediment Elevation Table measurements in Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research site. For more information on this research, check out Anne Giblin’s Data Nugget, “Keeping Up With the Sea Level”.

Most importantly, a great outcome of using LTER data to create Data Nuggets is that teachers and students will directly benefit from additional resources that highlight the importance of data and science in an authentic context. Activities aiming to improve quantitative skills are more effective if they’re grounded in real world situations that students can relate to. Connecting science to a student’s experiences and local ecosystems makes the content more accessible, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse students. These connections also allow students to envision a place for themselves in science. To assist with place-based learning, each Data Nugget is categorized and searchable by the location where the study occurred, allowing teachers to connect data to their students’ environment. In this way, LTER Data Nuggets have the potential to increase interest and engagement with science and data, in both students and the public.

Robert Buchsbaum, from Mass Audubon, preparing his team for a morning of salt marsh bird surveys. Find out more about his research on the endangered Saltmarsh Sparrow in his Data Nugget, “Does Sea Level Rise Harm Saltmarsh Sparrows?”

Working with LTER Scientists and Educators

This past summer (2015), we received support from the LTER Summer Fellowship program. This support allowed us to continue our work with Data Nuggets, and to strengthen their connection to the vast stores of data available through the LTER, including the KBS site and the other 24 sites in the LTER Network. While the LTER Network has conducted over three decades of amazing research, spanning diverse ecosystems and taxa, LTER education and outreach specialists are still finding creative new ways to share this important research with the public. Data Nuggets can breath new life into long-term

datasets, opening them up to the public and future scientists. These funds were used to support training workshops at the LTER All Scientists Meeting (ASM) in Estes Park, CO in August and at KBS in July. These two workshops supported early and late career scientists (graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and REUs) and many LTER education and outreach specialists looking to broaden the impact of the LTER’s research and improve their communication skills. In addition, at the LTER ASM we participated in a poster session to reach out to those who were unable to attend our workshop. Our outreach efforts strengthened the connection between Data Nuggets and the LTER, and resulted in the creation of nine (and counting!) new Data Nuggets based on LTER research. Additionally, in August, we spoke to the teachers working with the KBS K-12 Partnership, connecting them with the LTER Data Nuggets and the vast pool of LTER data, freely available online.

When reflecting back on this summer, it was so great to work with a diversity of LTER scientists across the network. We enjoyed learning new science stories and are very happy to now include coastal, urban riparian, and other ecosystems in the Data Nuggets collection. Please feel free to contact Melissa or Elizabeth if you would like more information or to get started creating your own Data Nugget! For a list of all the Data Nuggets created by LTER scientists and outreach leaders, click here!

You are invited to participate in this online survey about whether you are using Data Nuggets in your classroom, and if so, what students have gained from using this educational resource. The survey will take approximately 10-20 minutes to complete. This survey is anonymous and voluntary; your personal information will not be attached to your responses. At the end of the survey you will be asked about your interest in the classroom-based research study we will conduct in 2017. If you indicate that you are interested in the classroom-based study we will use your email address to provide you with more information about that study.

The findings from this survey will be used to:

1. Inform future development of Data Nuggets
2. Design research to test the efficacy of Data Nuggets in improving students’ scientific and quantitative literacy

Click here to begin the survey!

Please complete the survey by February 1^st. Should you have any questions about the study or the procedures, you may contact Molly Stuhlsatz at mstuhlsatz@bscs.org.

Article originally published on MSU Today. Link to original posting can be found here.

“Data Nuggets rock, and now we can investigate how and why,” said Louise Mead, education director of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, a National Science Foundation funded center headquartered at Michigan State University.

MSU received a $1.1 million grant from the NSF to research the effectiveness of Data Nuggets, a science education project co-designed by MSU scientists and teachers. Data Nuggets are educational activities that bring real scientific data into the classroom, giving students practice interpreting quantitative information and making claims based on evidence. MSU will collaborate in this research with the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, a non-profit curriculum study committed to transforming science teaching and learning.

“This is what teachers are asking for and it’s well aligned with the next generation of science practices,” said Mead, an evolutionary biologist, researcher and educator. “K-12 teachers see their students struggling in quantitative reasoning skills and science, and they’re looking for new and innovative approaches in the classroom.”

Developed in 2011 at MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station, Data Nuggets are used to engage K-12 students in the practices of science by challenging them to answer a scientific question using data to support their claim. The questions and data are from real research, provided by scientists and presented in a way that is accessible for K-12 classrooms. Students are guided through the construction of graphs to aid data interpretation during the modules, which are offered in a range of scientific research themes, from animal behavior to ecology to agriculture.

“I am so thrilled to see the excitement surrounding Data Nuggets whenever we present them to teachers and scientists,” said Elizabeth Schultheis, who along with fellow postdoctoral researcher Melissa Kjelvik developed Data Nuggets. “And as a scientist I am looking forward to collecting data on Data Nuggets to see if they do what we predict they’ll do.”

The new NSF grant will allow research examining whether short, targeted interventions of classroom activities embedded within a typical curriculum can impact student outcomes. The results could provide teachers with information about supplementing their current lesson plans with classroom activities like Data Nuggets, specifically targeted at improving students’ understanding of science.

“The big picture is that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science, and this might give us a chance to help both teachers and students,” Mead said. “Data Nuggets gives these students a step up, so that when they go to college they’ve already analyzed data and formed hypotheses.”

By providing students with access to authentic science and data, Data Nuggets hopes to bridge the gap between scientists and the public. Scientists who create Data Nuggets lessons will be able to share the process of science and research findings with students and teachers, and help to improve the understanding of science in society.

“Because Data Nuggets originated from a partnership of teachers and scientists, they address both the needs of scientists to share their research broadly and improve their communication skills, and of teachers who need resources that address science reform and teach science in an authentic way,” Schultheis said.

Sharing research findings with the non-science public is an important part of the science process, yet is often one of the most challenging to achieve. With broader impacts a factor in most grants, finding effective methods of transmission is key. Data Nuggets, a GK-12 initiative from the Kellogg Biological Station is a practical, high-impact solution to this conundrum. If you need to increase broader impacts for your research and want to further develop your communication skills, come to our hands-on workshop and create a Data Nugget based on your research!

Data Nuggets are targeted classroom activities that emphasize developing quantitative skills for K-16 students. They are created from recent and ongoing research, bringing cutting edge science into the classroom and helping scientists share their work with broad audiences. The standard format of each Data Nugget provides a brief background to a researcher and their study system along with a dataset from their research. Students are challenged to answer a scientific question, using the dataset to support their claim, and are guided through the construction of graphs to facilitate data interpretation.

We are currently seeking to add to our collection of Data Nuggets to showcase science done at LTER sites across the country. See examples of LTER Data Nuggets and learn more about our project by clicking on our LTER tag. During the workshop we will walk you through our templates for experimental and observational data, and help you identify a proper dataset, scientific question, and hypothesis for students of many ages. In order to finish a Data Nugget within the allotted time, participants must come to the workshop with a dataset already selected and analyzed.

• Workshop info can be found here.
• Organizers: Mary Spivey, Elizabeth Schultheis, and Melissa Kjelvik
• Monday, August 31st – Working Group Session II