Teaching data science to kids is proven to improve their analytical, logical, and problem-solving skills, and improve their performance at school while preparing them for success in a data-driven future. Here are the top seven benefits of teaching data science to kids.
Table of Contents
Introduction Boosts imagination and creativity Improves mathematical skills Improves performance at school Enhances problem-solving skills Promotes data fluency Improves career prospects Ensures great earnings ConclusionIntroduction
Data science is a multidisciplinary field that has its roots in logic, statistics, math, and computer science.
Teaching data science to kids is proven to improve their analytical, logical, and problem-solving skills, and improve their performance at school while preparing them for success in a data-driven future.
Data science teaches kids to obtain, clean/process, and transform data. They will learn to analyze and interpret data and use appropriate models of analysis to derive insights and investigate potential issues.
Data science will also introduce children to the Python programming language to work through simple data science projects including working with data, visualisation and using tools to extract insights from data.
Read on to discover the top seven benefits of teaching data science to kids.
Boosts imagination and creativity
One might think that data science is purely a left-brain activity. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
In data science, kids will learn to find patterns in the data. Once your child finds a pattern, they will have to create a visual to show the pattern. Finally, they will use the patterns to forecast. Imagination and creativity are all critical to successfully complete these activities.
Creativity and imagination are also necessary in data science as the data that you have is rarely the data that you want. Creativity and imagination are required to bridge that gap.
In data science, creativity and imagination is not only needed in find out which data science tool is right for the job but also knowing how to tweak or modify the problem at hand to make your approach deliver much better results.
Learning data science will help widen the child’s learning horizons and improve their imagination and creative skills.
Improves mathematical skills
Data science is deeply rooted in mathematics and statistics.
While learning data science, kids will develop some key skills in these areas of mathematics: Linear algebra, calculus, statistics, basic math notation, charts and graphs, functions.
Many data science concepts are tied to linear algebra. Also, most ML applications deal with high dimensional data (data with many variables) which is best represented by matrices, another critical algebraic concept.
Calculus is also important for several key data science applications. For example, kids need to be able to calculate derivatives and gradients for optimization.
Learning data science will improve your child’s mathematical skills by allowing them to use mathematics concepts to solve real-world problems.
Codingal’s courses are designed to make coding a learning aid for STEM subjects.
Improves performance at school
Data science has applications across subjects and disciplines.
Teaching data science to kids can therefore improve their learning and understanding of concepts in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and other subjects.
Learning data science also exposes kids to a wide array of problems and the processes of data collection, data entry, data visualization, model building, etc. All these require skills and knowledge from various disciplines and subjects they study at school.
This way, teaching data science to kids improves their understanding of the different subjects they study at school and boosts their performance.
Enhances problem-solving skills
Among the many benefits of teaching data science to kids is enhanced problem-solving skills.
Data science allows kids to think outside of the box which is essential to problem-solving.
By learning data science, children can learn to find new perspectives and imaginative and experimental solutions to all kinds of problems.
Data science allows children to uncover innovative and progressive solutions to problems.
Problem-solving skills gained by learning data science can be applied to all areas of human development be it social, emotional, creative, cognitive, or physical. The sooner kids build these critical skills, the better it is.
Promotes data fluency
We are surrounded by data.
The amount of data being generated on a daily basis has increased immensely over the past few years and is only said to keep growing. If kids are exposed to data from an early age, they will understand how to collect, examine, and analyze data.
Data science requires kids to work with a lot of data. And thus, learning data science from a young age promotes data fluency and helps in better analysis and understanding of data.
Improves career prospects
Data science is making inroads into new field every day. According to the World Economic Forum, data science will create up to 58 million jobs in the next few years.
Teaching data science to kids will help them with their career success in the future. If kids are fascinated by the applications of data, they are more likely to want to work in the field once they are ready to do so.
Ensures great earnings
Data science is in demand and data scientists have numerous opportunities. Data science is predicted to create 11.5 million jobs by 2026 making it a highly employable job sector.
Data science pays great: Data science is one of the most highly paid jobs and data scientists make over $100,000 per year on average.
Data science not only offers you great career opportunities, it also helps you in personal growth by inculcating problem-solving and analytical skills that are applicable in any professional setting.
Conclusion
The future holds endless possibilities for data science and teaching data science to kids offers them an opportunity to thrive in the future.
The best way to introduce kids to data science is by signing up for an online data science course for kids.
Codingal’s data science course for kids teaches them basic principles of data science, introduces them to data structures and data analysis, and helps them start using artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks.
Our teachers are all data scientists who are trained to match the style and pace of learning to suit your child. Book a free class to find out how.
