"Harvesting a Sea of Data", featured in the Summer2015 issue of NSTA's The Science Teacher, addresses the fundamental challenge in getting big data into K-12 education: how to build a good interface. The article discusses the work of Ocean Tracks, an innovative program that gives students access to authentic data to investigate marine migrations.
Supporting students' work with authentic data requires a carefully developed and rigorously-tested curriculum to help them understand what the data represent, and to guide them in how to use data analysis tools and visualizations to identify meaningful patterns and develop evidence-based hypotheses.