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Lesson 8.1: Data Detectives - Lists and Organization

Welcome back, detectives! Your new mission is to investigate DATA. Data is all around us, from the way books are organized in a library to the list of your favorite video games. Today, we’ll learn how to collect and organize data, just like a real data scientist!

What You’ll Learn

By the end of this investigation, you’ll be able to:

  • Explain why organizing information (data) is so important.
  • Collect and sort information about our class into different categories.
  • Create a simple digital list of the data you collected.
  • Spot interesting patterns in the data we gather together.

Your Detective Mission

Data in the Wild (12 minutes)

  • Let’s brainstorm all the places we see organized information. (Grocery store aisles, a dictionary, the list of students in our class).
  • Why is it helpful that these things are organized? What if they weren’t?
  • We’ll see that computers are super-fast organizers, and that’s one of their main superpowers.

Classroom Data Hunt (20 minutes)

  • Time to be data collectors! Our topic: Our Class!
  • We’ll gather information on fun topics like: What’s our class’s favorite ice cream flavor? How many pets do we have in total?
  • We’ll use clipboards and charts to record our findings, just like real researchers.

Creating a Digital Database (15 minutes)

  • Let’s take the information we collected and put it into our computers.
  • We’ll learn how to create organized lists and pages in Scratch Jr. to display our findings.
  • We can add pictures and colors to make our data easy and fun to read.

What Does the Data Tell Us? (3 minutes)

  • Let’s look at the data we organized. What did we learn?
  • Are there any surprising patterns? (Maybe more people have cats than dogs!)
  • This is how data helps us understand the world better.

Your Detective Toolkit

  • Clipboards and worksheets for our data hunt
  • Your device with Scratch Jr.
  • Big paper to display our class data for everyone to see
  • Sticky notes to help us sort our ideas into different groups

How to Be a Top Data Detective

  • We’ll see how carefully you collect and record your information.
  • How well did you sort your data into logical groups or categories?
  • Your final digital list will show off your awesome new organization skills!

New Tech Words to Master

  • Data: A collection of facts and information.
  • List: An organized way to display data.
  • Organization: Putting information into a logical order so it’s easy to understand.
  • Category: A group of things that have something in common.
  • Database: A big, organized collection of data that a computer can access easily.