Working with real-world data is a great way to promote engagement and motivation in your students. Below are a range of curated lesson plans and datasets that have been formatted for classroom use.
Primary School Secondary School
Primary School
| Activity | Description | Years | Subjects/KLAs | File/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biodiversity Study | In this activity we will be looking at measuring how many different types of plants and animals can be found in the gardens around your school. This project meets outcomes from Maths, Science, and Digital Technologies, and can be adapted for all years from Foundation to year 6. | F-6 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson Plan |
| Pocket Data Science | Who has better pockets? And who has the most pockets? Is Pocket Inequality a real thing? For this project students will need to measure the pockets in clothes around the house, and figure out whose clothes have better pockets. | F-6 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson Plan |
| CSIRO Educational Datasets | CSIRO has published their Educational Datasets materials, created in collabpration with ADSEI’s Dr Linda McIver and others have created. They include lesson plans working with CSIRO datasets, as well as guides for using the data in the classroom and Australian Curriculum links. | 3-10 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Educational Datasets materials |
| Protecting dugongs | This lesson from the Digital Technologies Hub created in collaboration with ADSEI, uses data collected by The Western Australian Marine Science Institution about dugongs off the coast of the Kimberley in Northern WA. In this project students will learn how dugong sightings are conducted, and develop the data-science skills needed to make the sightings data useful for analysis. | 5-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Webinar: Developing Data Science skills | This webinar by the Digital Technologies Hub is aimed at teachers with Years 5-8 students. In the webinar we explain how the above DT Hub resources can be used effectively in your class. The webinar is presented by Martin Richards, DT Hub and Linda McIver, Australian Data Science Education Institute. | 5-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Webinar |
| Advertising Project | This project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, looks at the frequency, format and content of the advertising we see in our daily lives. | 3-4 | Science, Mathematics, English, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Trees and Carbon Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students count trees and calculate how much carbon they store, comparing different ways of counting the trees, and looking at whole neighbourhoods. | 3-4 | Science, Mathematics, Geography, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Measuring Mindfullness Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students will measure and track the effectiveness of mindfullness programs on their emotions and ability to focus. | 5-6 | Science, Mathematics, English, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Weather Prediction Accuracy Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students look at how accurate weather forecasts are and compare forecasts from a range of sources. | 5-6 | Science, Mathematics, English, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Reducing Rubbish – Litter Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students will measure the amount of rubbish at their school before and after implementing ideas to reduce the amount of rubbish. | F-2 | Mathematics, Geography, Digital Technologies, and English | Lesson |
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Secondary School
| Activity | Description | Years | Subjects/KLAs | File/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Covid Experience dataset | This data set is the results of a 2024 survey to see how covid cautious people are, and whether there’s a correlation between levels of caution and number of covid infections. The resulting dataset is rich, complex, and deeply flawed (like all surveys and most real datasets!). There’s scope for purely statistical investigations, and deep discussions about the ways in which such a survey is flawed. | 7-10 | Mathematics, Digital Technologies | Raw data Lesson Plan |
| Covid 19 mobility dataset | A spreadsheet of Google Mobility data from just before and during the covid 19 pandemic. There is so much to explore in this dataset, it has great potential for an open ended classroom exercise. Please note that use of the spreadsheet is subject to the Google Terms of Service, as the original data came from Google. | 7-10 | Mathematics, Digital Technologies | Raw Data Project Ideas |
| Confectionary Snakes maths/data activity | Investigate the stretchiness of lolly snakes in this activity contributed by Dianne Frost from Melbourne High School. | 7-10 | Mathematics, Digital Technologies | Lesson Plan |
| Baby Name Frequency | This lesson plan was created by the R-Ladies Meetup group in Sydney, they have provided a great write up and some excellent suggestions for exploring the data. | 7-10 | Mathematics, HASS, Digital Technologies | Project Guide |
| Renewable Energy | This project is based on a Dataset of Renewable Energy Installations by postcode around Australia. It is a great way to understand how to explore and characterise datasets, as well as explore the use of data in the media, as the media reporting of this dataset makes a classic mistake, doing a simple analysis that gives a misleading conclusion. | 7-8 | Science, Mathematics, Digital Technologies | Lesson Plan |
| Learn@Pawsey | Learn@Pawsey is a collaboration between the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre and ADSEI to build school STEM projects around real data on interesting topics. The Data Home page has activities with access to the raw data and plus lesson plans, complete with rubrics and worksheets. | 9-10 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Data Home |
| CSIRO Educational Datasets | CSIRO has published their Educational Datasets materials, created in collabpration with ADSEI’s Dr Linda McIver and others have created. They include lesson plans working with CSIRO datasets, as well as guides for using the data in the classroom and Australian Curriculum links. | 3-10 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Educational Datasets materials |
| Humpback whales: what the data reveals | This lesson from the Digital Technologies Hub created in collaboration with ADSEI follows an inquiry process in which students use a dataset to answer relevant questions about the whale population. They consider what other data they would need in order to effectively examine the impact on humpback whales of sonar activity and noise from development. | 7-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Impact of climate change on Flatback turtle populations | This lesson from the Digital Technologies Hub created in collaboration with ADSEI follows an inquiry process in which students use a dataset to answer relevant questions about the turtle population. | 7-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Protecting dugongs | This lesson from the Digital Technologies Hub created in collaboration with ADSEI, uses data collected by The Western Australian Marine Science Institution about dugongs off the coast of the Kimberley in Northern WA. In this project students will learn how dugong sightings are conducted, and develop the data-science skills needed to make the sightings data useful for analysis. | 5-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Lesson |
| Webinar: Developing Data Science skills | This webinar by the Digital Technologies Hub is aimed at teachers with Years 5-8 students. In the webinar we explain how the above DT Hub resources can be used effectively in your class. The webinar is presented by Martin Richards, DT Hub and Linda McIver, Australian Data Science Education Institute. | 5-8 | Science, Mathematics, and Digital Technologies | Webinar |
| Countries and Conservation Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students will explore how different countries compare in terms of the percentage of their total area set aside for conservation both now and historically. | 7-8 | Science, Mathematics, Humanities, Geography, Digital Technologies, and English | Lesson |
| Solar Energy and Air Conditioning Project | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students will explore the relationship between air-conditioning use, energy consumption and the impact on the environment. | 7-8 | Science, Mathematics, Humanities, Geography, Digital Technologies, and English | Lesson |
| Science Reporting Quality | In this project, created for the Vistorian Department of Education, students will investigate ways to evaluate and identify high-quality science journalism. | 9-10 | Science, Mathematics, Economics and Business, Design and Technology, History, Digital Technologies, and English | Lesson |