Education: Open Data in Schools
Publication Date/Time
2018-01-31T09:00:00+00:00
How Open Data can benefit educational purposes
Often, when Open Data is discussed, the focus lies most of the time on
business opportunities and the various benefits that Open (Government)
Data holds for the economy and government, in particular with regards
to fostering business innovation and efficiency gains. Further
benefits however have also been quantified on other dimensions, such
as the environmental and societal ones. Concerning the latter, the
focus lies here on the added value that Open Data brings for democracy
by enhancing transparency of political processes as well as boosting
participation of citizens in the decision-making at local, regional
and/or national level. However, little attention is given on the use
of Open Data in the field of education. More and more European
countries have acknowledged this potential and have started some proof
of concept projects to introduce Open Data in the school curriculum.

One example thereof is the OPEN DATA FOR EDUCATION COMPETITION IN
NORTHERN IRELAND. In 2016, the government of Northern Ireland launched
a competition for innovative ideas on how to use Open Data for
Education (#ODNI4EDU). The objective was to use available Open Data
provided via the public sector portal to assist with teaching in
primary and secondary schools
[https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/news/ministers-announce-winners-open-data-education-competition].
The best two ideas were awarded £20,000 towards developing their
prototypes into classroom-ready applications. One of the winners was
"Our Raging Planet [http://ourragingplanet.co.uk/]", a platform that
helps pupils learn about the possible impact of natural disasters. The
application allows teachers to demonstrate what could happen if a
disaster, which occurred at the other side of the planet, would strike
at home. At the same time, it enables pupils to get acquainted with
the geographic implications of global warming and how data can help
take informed decisions
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNf7S4IkoE&feature=youtu.be].

A further example comes from Germany where a COLLABORATIVE OPEN DATA
SCHOOL PROJECT WAS LAUNCHED IN MOERS. In Moers, a town with
approximately 100,000 inhabitants in Germany's federal state of North
Rhine-Westphalia, the local administration and the Open Knowledge
Foundation set out to explore the potential of Open Data in the
classroom. The project -- DatenmachenSchule
[https://datenmachenschule.de/] - aims to help develop of a series of
software applications, together with the Adolfinum Gymnasium and the
students of the Rhine-Whaal University of Applied Sciences. Like the
Northern Irish project, the idea here as well is to make school
lessons more interactive by employing Open Data.

The project showed how data can be used in the school curriculum in a
variety of subjects. In mathematics or computer science lectures, data
was used in assignments. In subjects such as politics or social
studies, pupils were able to learn more about their local government,
its budget and spending, by using Open Data publicly available on the
open budget platform offenerhaushalt.de [https://offenerhaushalt.de/].
Other school lessons included data on the demographic development of
Moers' districts. For example, in the case of the demographic
development data, seventh graders were asked to analyse the statistics
and compare the insights to their personal experiences. In groups,
pupils were then tasked to identify good locations for a nursing home,
a kindergarten and a supply store for young families. They then
reflected which data was useful and which data might be missing,
before discussing further potential use cases of publicly available
data. Furthermore, data on energy consumption in schools was used in
environmental science classes. It provided pupils with insights into
their own school's energy use and enabled them to see their school's
performance compared to other schools in the area. Pupils were able to
understand how they can help save energy and contribute to a
sustainable use of resources. Such examples and many more use cases of
Open Data in the classroom, can be found in the published guidelines
[https://datenmachenschule.de/leitfaden/] of the DatenMachenSchule
project.

A similar initiative was launched in SWITZERLAND AS WELL, WHERE STEPS
HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO INTRODUCE OPEN DATA IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM. Data
analysis is part of the Lehrplan21 [https://www.lehrplan.ch/]
curriculum - a plan adopted in 2014 to harmonise the school curriculum
in the 21 German-speaking and multi-lingual cantons. As part of the
Media and Informatics curriculum of the Lehrplan21
[http://v-ef.lehrplan.ch/index.php?code=a%7C10%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C1],
pupils are introduced to the basics of working with data, from data
structures, formats to inserting, maintaining and analysing data from
databases. The idea is supported by the School of Data Switzerland
[https://schoolofdata-ch.github.io/] - a project that aims to foster
data literacy and enhance interest (amongst the young generation in
particular) in working with and understanding data. A forum discussion
[https://forum.schoolofdata.ch/t/data-in-the-classroom/332] on this
topic was recently initiated on the School of Data Switzerland
platform, seeking for further ideas on how Open Data can be embedded
into the school curriculum.

These are only a few examples of the numerous initiatives undertaken
across Europe that aim at boosting digital skills and creating new
interactive learning and teaching resources, as well as strengthening
the collaborative approach to knowledge development. With the degree
of digitalisation of our society advancing, data literacy becomes
imperative and such examples are a great step in this direction.
Particularly the young generation of pupils and students need to
develop such digital competences and learn how to work with data.

Are you also conducting an initiative to foster the use of Open Data
in classrooms that you would like to share with us? Do not hesitate to
drop us a line and tell us about it [/en/feedback/form?type=1]!
