Empowering precollege data science education with an innovative learning portal

Data science education in K-12 settings often lacks authentic, hands-on experiences that allow students to meaningfully engage with data practices such as data collection, organization, visualization, and interpretation. Project-based learning provides a pedagogically grounded approach for developing these skills by situating data work within real scientific inquiry. The NIH SEPA-funded WInSTEP-SEPA (Wisconsin Inquiry-based Science Teacher Education Partnership-Science Education Partnership Award) portal was designed to operationalize this approach by embedding data science and data literacy instruction directly into environmental health research projects conducted by high school students.

A multidisciplinary team of scientists, educators, and developers co-designed a web-based portal that supports student-led experimental design, structured data entry, visualization, and cross-study data exploration. The portal explicitly scaffolds core data literacy and introductory data science practices, including data generation, data management aligned with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles, descriptive statistics, and graphical analysis. Learning outcomes were evaluated using matched pre- and post-instruction student surveys focused on data literacy and FAIR principles, along with teacher feedback.

Our portal successfully supported hands-on data science and data literacy learning for students. High school students used the portal to investigate the effects of environmental exposures such as nicotine, caffeine, and ethanol on zebrafish embryo development. Students actively engaged in collecting, organizing, visualizing, and interpreting their own experimental data and comparing results across studies. Moreover, our pre-post survey analysis showed statistically significant gains in students' understanding of foundational data literacy concepts, particularly related to the meaning of data and FAIR data practices.

By integrating hands-on experimentation with structured data workflows, the WInSTEP-SEPA portal connects project-based learning to concrete data science and data literacy practices in K-12 education. The evaluation demonstrates measurable improvements in students' data literacy and supports the portal's effectiveness as a scalable model for introducing authentic, data-driven scientific inquiry in secondary classrooms.