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The Promise and Practice of Teaching Data Literacy in Social Studies: A Companion Site A Taxonomy of Data Visualizations Information can be visualized in multiple ways, from bar graphs to scatterplots, choropleth maps to distribution maps, timelines to time series. Designers can choose from an array of graphical elements such as points, lines, or icons used to represent data, and multiple aesthetic attributes such as color, shape, and size. Furthermore, designers can apply multiple combinations of titles, legends, and explanatory text to provide context for a data visualization. Given the almost dizzying array of data visualizations students may encounter in social studies, it is helpful to place them in categories related to the types of questions they will help us answer. How do students learn with data visualizations? Reading data visualizations in print and online social studies texts can improve students' overall comprehension and quality of reasoning. And there is evidence to suggest that reading data visualizations helps students better understand historical and geographic context, multiple causation, and change over time — all important concepts for students to grasp in social studies subject areas. However, students may face significant challenges in trying to make sense of different kinds of data visualizations. This section provides insight into both benefits and challenges of reading timelines, maps, and graphs and charts. How should students analyze data visualizations in social studies? The challenges that data visualizations present, coupled with their prevalence in social studies texts, standardized assessments, in online social studies resources, and as sources of information in society, suggest that teaching with and about data visualizations in social studies is essential. This module provides guidance for how teachers can support students' data literacy for social studies. Index of Lesson Plans This page contains a list of the minimal manuals and lessons found on this website. Minimal manuals are designed to be adapted to different grade levels and do not have a grade designation associated with them. Lesson plans are organized according to the school level for which they are designed. However, many of these lessons can be adapted for different grade levels.

Nightingale Rose Charts

Named for its creator, Florence Nightingale, these charts are drawn on a polar coordinate grid. Commonly mistaken for a pie chart, they are different because each category or interval in the data is divided into equal segments. How far each segment extends from the center of the polar axis depends on the value it represents -- the longer the segment, the higher the value. Nightingale used it to show changes in the causes of soldiers' deaths over a 12-month period, before and after sanitation measures were used in hospitals during the Crimean War.

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1. Area Graphs
2. Line Graphs Line graphs are used to display quantitative values over a continuous interval or time period. A line graph is most frequently used to show trends and analyze how the data has changed over time, but time does not have to be one of the variables. The are also good for showing how long positive or negative trends last. William Playfair's stacked line graph (with two categories and therefore two lines) shown here is from the 1786 Commercial and Political Atlas was innovative in that it showed the importance of the relationship between the lines too.
3. Bubble Charts A bubble chart is a multi-variable graph that is a cross between a scatterplot and a proportional area chart. Bubble charts use a Cartesian coordinate system to plot points along a grid where the X and Y axis are separate variables. Each point is assigned a label or category. Each plotted point then represents a third variable by the area of its circle. Colors can also be used to distinguish between categories or used to represent an additional data variable. Time can be shown either by having it as a variable on one of the axis or by animating the data variables changing over time. Hans Rosling made the bubble chart famous through his website Gapminder.
4. Nightingale Rose Charts Named for its creator, Florence Nightingale, these charts are drawn on a polar coordinate grid. Commonly mistaken for a pie chart, they are different because each category or interval in the data is divided into equal segments. How far each segment extends from the center of the polar axis depends on the value it represents -- the longer the segment, the higher the value. Nightingale used it to show changes in the causes of soldiers' deaths over a 12-month period, before and after sanitation measures were used in hospitals during the Crimean War.
5. Timelines