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Data Science Course: Year One

Data Science Course: Year One

In May 2024, the 11 students enrolled in Dana Hall’s inaugural Data Science course each made a final presentation to their classmates and team of teachers. They used their data analysis and coding skills to examine a wide range of topics, including, among others, the impact of rising global average temperature, sailors’ food consumption, the speeds of racing horses, the prevalence of drug use and depressive disorders, and water use in New York City. Their presentations represented their culminating experiences, but also marked a milestone for Dana Hall’s Data Science program.

Just two years before, the School was awarded a grant from the E.E. Ford Foundation to create an interdisciplinary Data Science program that combined Computer Science, Statistics and Social Studies. The terms of the $75,000 challenge grant required a 1:1 match by Dana Hall; donors to the Fearless Futures campaign met that challenge to secure the funding.

Math teacher Alla Baranovsky, Social Studies teacher Brian Cook and Computer Science Department Head Pat Townsend spent a year designing a course that would prepare students for college, where nearly every major is now expected to include a Data Science course, and bridge the gap between different disciplines using Data Science. The grant and the matching funds supported ongoing professional development, travel to conferences, and special laptops for the students. 

Baranovsky itemized the team’s year-one successes. “We showed that it is indeed possible to teach Data Science to children at this age. We had to make the case for this when we were pitching this course, because it was not immediately obvious that this was the right demographic for this material,” she shared. “The second thing that went very well was our decision to approach this as a tinkering, workshopping type of environment where we weren’t going to do a whole lot of hand holding. We wanted to prepare students to be coders, and this is what coders do — they have to grapple with problems and they have to be uncomfortable sometimes.

“Our third big success was Brian’s idea to incorporate standards-based grading. And number four is that we were actually able to be interdisciplinary as a team of teachers in a way that was noticeable and powerful.”  

The team was thoughtful about the prerequisites for the course, and determined there would only be one: students had to have taken or be currently enrolled in US History. As a result, only a few students had any prior coding experience, and none of them entered the course thinking of themselves as coders or statisticians. “They really deepened their own skills and understanding, and it was great to see their confidence grow,” said Townsend. The course, which is an elective, is fully enrolled for next year. 

“I was surprised by how quickly I became comfortable with coding, making graphs and learning to fix problems on my own.”

Nabiha Chowdhury ’24 

The three faculty members made sure to include space to discuss the ethics of data science. They also focused on grounding math and coding in real world applications that would be interesting to their students. The result was a true interdisciplinary course. “Schools often offer courses that are kind of interconnected, but not necessarily interdisciplinary,” said Cook. “There was no legacy curriculum for this. We built in the interdisciplinary aspect of this right from day one — it is in the DNA of the course. There are all kinds of opportunities for interdisciplinary learning, and this course can be a model for how to continue to build those opportunities.”

The Data Science program was funded by donors in support of Community Impact & Acceleration, one of the five priorities of the Fearless Futures campaign. For more information, contact Chief Advancement Officer Christie Baskett

a student presents to her classmates in a Data Science course
students listen to a classmate in a Data Science course