Introduction

Data is a word we hear almost everyday when we turn on the news. Obvious signs of data such as graphs and charts are a regular feature in newspapers, on TV and on social media. However data is now in almost every aspect of our and our children’s daily life and is often hidden. Many things we now take for granted either collect data or use data to optimise a product or service. Data is being used to plan our cities and understand our communities. As we move forward recognising data, being able to interpret it and take decisions using data will become an increasingly important skillset.

The Data Education for Schools project is a government funded project charged with ensuring that Scotland’s young people are given the knowledge and skills to be able to understand and use data. The project is creating materials for children as young as 3 all the way to through young people coming to the end of their school education at 18.

Families play an important part in supporing learning, never more so than during the current Covid-19 recovery. This part of our website aims to provide an introduction to data science learning for parents to both explain why these skills are important and to help provide guidance on how you can support your children to become data literate.

What is Data Science & Data Literacy?

Data science is the study of data. It involves developing methods of recording, storing, and analysing data to effectively extract useful information. The goal of data science is to gain insights and knowledge from data.

Watch this video for a brief introduction to data science

Data Literacy is the ability to ask and answer real-world questions using data. This can be as simple as finding out if you are active enough by interpreting your fitbit data to something much more complex like using data on housing, work and transport to decide how to design a new city.

Becoming data literate

No matter what jobs we have now or what jobs our children go on to have, being able to find meaning in data, recognise what it is telling you and to understand is accuracy is becoming a critical skill for everyone. We want young people to be informed about their personal data, their data rights and how they can use data for good.

Data Science in Scotland

In 2018 the Scottish Goverment and the UK government awarded Edinburgh and the South East of Scotland £660mver 15 years to transfrom education and ensure that the whole population can take advantage of the opportunities data science is going to bring. Jobs requiring data science skills area already available in numerous sectors around Scotland including:

  • agriculturbanking
  • manufacturing
  • brewing
  • hospitality & tourism

Data Education for Schools

Part of the government funding is being used to create the Data Education for Schools project which aims to transform Data Education for Scotland’s young people. Find out more about the project, what your children will be learning and how you become involved here.