I remember using Gapminder World in High School. I specifically remember using it sophomore year when (as a grade) we were participating in a model United Nations. It gave teams the opportunity to learn large amounts of information quickly about both their country and other countries. It was a great tool and I was excited to plan a lesson around it after last class.
Picture a science health class in a 1-1 school (which is where I dream to be eventually). The students have just finished a unit on different global diseases and this is their final project and assessment for the unit. In groups of two, students will pick a disease that Gapminder World has data on. Once they pick the disease they want to learn more about for their project the objective is to determine what are major influencing factors for that disease. For example, if I picked Malaria then I would chose different factors such as GDP, Education, Poverty and observe their influence on Malaria. Once I have manipulated and analyzed the different graphs the students will chose 1-2 factors that they want to research more.
The students will research the disease itself if it was not covered during the unit within the class. Finding information such as: how you get it, symptoms, and is there a cure? They will also research the affect and impact that the one-two different factors had on their disease. The students will get multiple days to accomplish this. At the end they will have created a poster, presentation, video or some method of representing their group research. In class there will be a gallery walk where students will set up their project and get to walk around the classroom and see everyone’s research.
Lesson Objectives:
Students will be able to manipulate and interpret data of a health disease to determine important factors.
Students will be able to research their disease and important factors after analyzing and interpreting the data.
Final Product:
A representation of the research on both the disease and its important factors. Could be a video, poster board, presentation, etc.
For an assignment such as this one I wanted to do a student led project. I wanted students to be invested in what they were researching so I let them chose their own disease. I also wanted to let students use their creativity and imagination in presenting their findings. Often assignments and projects in classes tend to be very scripted so I wanted a project with more freedom.
I also wanted the students to be able to play around with the program and learn how it worked along with the different methods it has for representing data!