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Kirsten Smayda
Posted: 10/07/2021 - 09:45

Massive amounts of data are generated every day on Earth and beyond - upwards of 2.5 quintillion bytes a day, as estimated by CloudTweaks. This offers exciting opportunities to work with data, in both academia and industry. Which setting is a better fit for you? It depends on how you want to work with data. Although data propels work forward in both academic and non-academic settings, academic and industry...Read more

Author: Randy Kochevar
Posted: 02/24/2021 - 11:29

If the past month has done nothing else, it has shown us what a powerful force data can be in our daily lives. As the number of American lives lost from COVID passes half a million, state and county governments monitor the falling case rate data, which will determine when they can begin to re-open schools and businesses.

In Texas and across the Midwest, officials are having to come to terms with the fact that historical averages in weather patterns are not useful predictors of the...Read more

Author: Libby Boghossian
Posted: 02/04/2019 - 10:39

The Exploring Urban Mobility: Using Data to Solve Problems of the Future is creating data-intensive lessons for high school students to think about issues of urban mobility. Hear from one of the curriculum authors about the focus of one of the lessons: Hurricane Katrina.

...Read more

Author: Randy Kochevar
Posted: 03/05/2018 - 16:28

The company Strava was in the news recently for its ability to display highly accurate maps using position data from personal fitness devices (e.g., Fitbit, Apple Watch, etc.). Not only are GPS fitness devices tracking a person’s mileage on land, many...Read more

Author: Randy Kochevar
Posted: 02/13/2018 - 20:56

I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about how we can better teach science using data. I believe that 21st Century science is increasingly data-intensive, and that in order to teach science as it is actually being practiced, it should be possible to identify datasets and data stories relevant to most, if not all, topics in modern science to use in the classroom.

So, being a biologist, I began by looking into the world of modern biology – seeking areas where new frontiers are...Read more

Author: Emma Perry
Posted: 07/17/2017 - 13:28

In May, I visited La Jolla and Scripps Institute of Oceanography for the first time. Coming from Maine and what seemed like a never-ending winter I was looking forwards to the sun and warmth of California. Of course, I arrived on an unusually rainy day. However, the weather soon returned to its usual splendor and I walked along the shore to the meeting room at Scripps where I was to help work on the undergraduate modules of Ocean Tracks.

I was one of three faculty at this meeting, all...Read more

Author: Linda Fergusson-Kolmes
Posted: 07/06/2017 - 11:48

A scientist, a teacher, and a data analyst walk into a room…

This describes the start of 4 days of intense discussion about the Ocean Tracks-College Edition (OT-CE) modules. Early in May, ODI’s Ocean Tracks curriculum development team met with faculty, like myself, who had used the OT-CE materials in their classrooms. I teach biology at Portland Community College and joined the workshop after testing three of the modules with my students. Since it was still raining in Oregon, it was...Read more

Author: Leana Nordstrom
Posted: 05/18/2017 - 17:21

ODI is the sum of many parts. Composed of 18 projects (5 actively funded) and about 25 staff, there are a lot of moving pieces to ODI. At any given time—in addition to the regular day-to-day work of moving 5 NSF-funded projects forward successfully—our staff is attending or presenting at conferences, meeting with partners and funders, and/or working on proposals for future work. As you might imagine, we are careful to prioritize our time.

When the opportunity of the...Read more

Author: Randy Kochevar
Posted: 04/19/2017 - 16:15

In the mid-1980s, the technology for electronically tracking ocean wildlife was just being developed. Early electronic tags relied on acoustic pings to communicate location and depth, and required captains and crews using directional hydrophones to actively follow marine animals through the ocean – for hours or days at a time.

The first challenge in using these technologies, of course was getting close enough to the animals to attach the tags to them. Fortunately, tournament...Read more

Author: Patrick McDeed
Posted: 03/15/2017 - 14:48

It’s been a few months since I last contributed to the ODI blog, and boy, a lot has happened in my blogging hiatus! We had leaks, hacks, an election, and the Cubs finally won the World Series (though I’m still not convinced this last one isn’t “fake news”). Through it all, the ODI team has been hard at work making new connections and continuing our efforts to better prepare K-16 students with the data literacy skills required to navigate the aforementioned rapidly changing world....Read more

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