TY - JOUR
T1 - MapStats for Kids
T2 - Making Geographic and Statistical Facts Available to Children
AU - Fuhrmann, Sven
AU - MacEachren, Alan
AU - Deberry, Marshall
AU - Bosley, John
AU - Taylor, Rachael La Porte
AU - Gahegan, Mark
AU - Downs, Roger
N1 - Funding Information:
Large segments of the population are not sufficiently geographically, cartographically or statistically literate; they do not fully understand the meaning of statistical summaries and their graphic representations. Many organizations such as the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and American Statistical Association (ASA) are tackling the challenge of increasing statistical and visual illiteracy in our adult population. Here we will focus on developing and supporting the achievement of statistical and graphic / cartographic literacy by middle school students through the design of a web portal that includes online learning activities based on federal statistics. MapStats for Kids is a research activity within the recently completed Quality Graphics for Federal Statistical Summaries project (which was supported through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Digital Government Program). The over-all aim of the Quality Graphics project was concerned with designing better graphic representations for statistical data. MapStats for Kids focuses on graphic and cartographic representations of statistics for use by middle school-age children. It was undertaken in cooperation with the FedStats data dissemination program. FedStats is a cross-agency Internet portal designed to help visitors find statistical facts for making personal or business decisions, conduct research on a myriad of topics, and be better informed to participate in civic affairs and public policy debates.
Funding Information:
The work reported here was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (#EIA9983451) and by funding from the FedStats Taskforce. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The views of the respective government authors expressed herein are their own and not necessarily those of their respective U.S. government agencies. We wish to also thank in alphabetical order Tanuka Bhowmick, Stephen Crawford, Mark Harrower, David Howard, and Bonan Li for their inputs to and/or advice on various stages of the work reported here.
Funding Information:
The foundation for our research was the NSF Digital Government Project, “Quality Graphics for Federal Statistical Summaries” (dgQG). Academic researchers and federal agency personnel collaborating on this project identified a series of public information access and dissemination challenges to which project research activities were directed. One of these challenges was to make federal web sites more accessible to children and more useful for promoting learning related to the wide range of activities undertaken by the federal government. It was obvious that the cognitive demands of operating web information portals designed for adults were too high for children and that the methods for enabling access to statistical summaries were too abstract. In general the Internet portals offered children limited access to assistance, navigation support, data explanations, help in understanding graphical representations, or information about what the data could be used for. Nielsen (2002) argues that: “Despite this growth in users and services, very little is known about how children actually use websites or how to design sites that will be easy for them to use.” Recognizing these accessibility and usability problems, the MapStats for Kids project goals were not to make the FedStats (or other federal websites) accessible to school students generally, but to design a web portal that
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - Statistical and geographical literacy is essential for our daily lives. A new web portal for middle school students, published on the federal government statistics website, supports geographic and statistical education by providing age-appropriate online learning activities that teach how to use statistical summaries and their graphic representations. The content of the learning activities is closely related to the National Geography Standards and the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. On average, the web portal receives 300 visitors per day.
AB - Statistical and geographical literacy is essential for our daily lives. A new web portal for middle school students, published on the federal government statistics website, supports geographic and statistical education by providing age-appropriate online learning activities that teach how to use statistical summaries and their graphic representations. The content of the learning activities is closely related to the National Geography Standards and the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. On average, the web portal receives 300 visitors per day.
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U2 - 10.1080/00221340508978645
DO - 10.1080/00221340508978645
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33344477881
SN - 0022-1341
VL - 104
SP - 233
EP - 241
JO - Journal of Geography
JF - Journal of Geography
IS - 6
ER -