On the first class day of (almost) every week, we will spend just the first few minutes looking at a news article, blog post, tweet, or anything else you come across that uses Data Science to try to make some point.

The purpose of this is to encourage you all to pay attention to how data is used in the everyday media you consume, and to start to think carefully about it.

Not every example has to be great! All that we ask is that your examples clearly use data in some way, and where at least one visual is produced as well as at least one key number or value that gets the point across. In fact, if there are some flaws or shortcomings about how the data is presented, that can be very interesting to discuss.

Your assignment

Your instructor will send out a link to sign up for weeks within your section. Pick a day that you won’t miss class!

At least two days prior to your scheduled date, add a link to the article/post/whatever you are discussing.

On that day of class, be prepared to discuss the key image or visual from the article, as well as one key number that came out of their data analysis.

You don’t have to be an expert! This should really just take a few minutes. We will all discuss it together, and hopefully have fun.

Grading

Every student must sign up, fill out the spreadsheet with an appropriate example, and come prepared to say a sentence or two introducing it on class that day. Then you will earn an A for this homework assignment.