Data Projects ProjectThese are some projects that I've used in my classroom! Some could be categorized as "data science", "machine learning", "simulation", or "physics lab". The big idea is numerical computing, particularly the use of computing to assist in mathematical modeling.
I assume my students do not have any coding experience, but I do try to create opportunities for those who want to learn or practice some coding skills. Especially important is the skill of translating between abstract concepts and algorithmic processes. In Math Education we might talk about conceptual and procedural understanding. Here, we want conceptual understanding of a problem as well as conceptual understanding of procedures! Problem solving requires understanding in both domains and the ability to juggle the two. In the end, I want students to be able to take a problem and formalize it into a computational problem, ideally with an understanding of the choices they made along the way and some understanding of potential consequences of those choices.
I try to make projects dynamically scaffolded, meaning that we can start by posing the problem and then provide more support or information when needed as students work toward solving the problem. Most of these projects do not have a single solution, rather many possible solutions, and even varying degrees of solution.
Some projects have datasets provided, while others require data collection. These projects are intended to be platform-independent, and have been solved using:
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