With the growing technological advances in data science, it is necessary to introduce kids to data science and its many applications at an early age. However, it could be a daunting task to teach kids concepts such as statistics, visualization, data analysis, etc. These concepts must be explained in ways that children easily understand. Here are the top five tips to help you introduce data science to your kids.
Table of Contents
Introduction Working with numbers and statistics Playing data and coding games Learning the applications of data science Creating with code Learning through data science activities ConclusionIntroduction
It is an undeniable fact that data is everywhere.
With the advent of smartphones, the internet of things (IoT), and other high-end technologies, a lot of data is produced by each one of us every single day. And it’s no surprise that the applications of data science are also increasing day by day.
Given the growing technological advances in data science, it is necessary to introduce kids to data science and its many applications at an early age.
However, teaching data science to kids could be a daunting task especially when it comes to concepts such as statistics, visualization, etc. These concepts must therefore be simplified and explained in ways that children easily understand.
Here are our top five tips to help you introduce data science to kids.
Working with numbers and statistics
Numbers and statistics are the key concepts of data science and these could get boring if not taught in the right way.
You can start teaching data science to kids by giving them assignments related to statistics where they are taught to draw graphs for real-life situations.
For example, you can ask them to group similar colored items and draw a graph from the information gained.
Such tasks can help kids learn simple concepts such as finding the average, most commonly occurred things, least occurred things, etc.
This would also help them understand data visualization and spike their interest in statistics and visualization.
Playing data and coding games
There are many things kids can do to have fun while also learning new things and picking new talents. Gaming is one of these methods.
Games can help you enhance critical thinking, problem-solving, coding, pattern-finding, and data analysis, which are necessary abilities for any data scientist.
Games are entertaining to play and will allow you to practice these skills without the pressure of completing a project or meeting a deadline:
There is a myriad of data handling and statistics-related games online which help children understand the concepts better.
Encouraging children to play data science-related games is a great way to introduce them to data science.
You could enroll your child in an online data science course for kids to get them started developing their data science and coding skills.
Learning the applications of data science
Data science has wide-ranging applications across industries and disciplines.
Introducing children to the practical applications of data science can be an amazing place to start teaching them about data science.
You can try to explain to them about the personalized health care recommendations, you could show them movie recommendations on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you could get them to understand simple auto-correction or auto-completion.
These are guaranteed to pique their interest in data science and inspire kids to learn more about the subject.
Creating with code
Coding forms one of the essential components for the implementation of data science concepts.
You need to make your child enthusiastic about code along with learning statistics and visualization.
You can help your kid with the basics of coding by using block-based programming languages such as Scratch.
You can also encourage them to learn further by giving them small coding tasks each day so they get excited to learn more.
Codingal offers beginners coding courses for kids to learn coding through fully interactive and personalized classes with expert computer science teachers.
Learning through data science activities
Kids enjoy doing activities and hence teaching them through activity-based learning gives them joy and knowledge together. Also, it’s proven that children learn their best by doing. Data Science includes various concepts such as Data gathering, Data pre-processing. Data segregation, Data Analysis, and Data Visualization, etc. These concepts can be imbibed through simple activities. Some of which are described below:
Data gathering: You could ask them to simply collect things from your garden such as leaves, stones, flowers, etc.
Data segregation: You could ask them to segregate all the items they have brought into various groups. Ask your child why certain things (like leaves and stones) go into a separate group and you can help them define various characteristic features each group has.
Data visualization: Now, as there is sufficient information, you can help them draw various graphs from the information obtained and encourage them to further make it colorful.
Conclusion
Data science is ideal for kids who are in their teens. This is an ideal age to start learning data science to help your child get accustomed to working with data and to start thinking analytically.
So if you’re thinking of teaching data science to your child, now is the best time to start.
Codingal offers data science courses for kids in grades 9-12 to introduce them to the basics of data science and help them start working with data at an early age.
Our data science courses for kids offer extensive training in data science practices while improving their logical, analytical, creative, and problem-solving skills.
Book a free class today to see how.
