Data Visualization Technology to Support Inquiry and Chronological Understanding in Social Studies

Data literacy, an important goal for social studies education, involves teaching students how to comprehend, analyze, interpret, evaluate, create, and argue with data and data visualizations such as timelines, maps, and graphs. Digital data visualizations support rapid inquiry and explorations that would be difficult on paper - such as adding data to an existing data visualization or creating multiple data visualizations of the same variable at multiple times or places for easy comparison. The process of asking questions and finding answers through data exploration is an important part of social studies education. While the authors recognize that there are many online data visualization tools that can be used in classrooms, they designed their tools, DV4L and Timeline Builder, specifically for use in social studies classrooms and based on feedback from prospective and current teachers. The authors have taken care to include features that teachers said would be useful in social studies data inquiry lessons and activities. These are still in a prototype phase, but are free to use and online.