Data-based decision-making is an important 21st century skill. The programs described below provide opportunities for students to search for, display, and analyze data, and make recommendations based on the data. Students learn to make informed connections between the subjects they study and the world in which they live.

All of these programs are still under development, but they have components that are ready for use now. The Boston Fed expects to conduct occasional teacher workshops on “best practices” in using these programs and the software they require.

Boston Renaissance Resource Kit, an ongoing project of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy (CURP) at Northeastern University, Boston

The Boston Renaissance Resource Kit provides in one place social-science data covering the Greater Boston metropolitan area from 1950 to 2000, including greater Boston neighborhoods, cities, and towns. The data can be displayed on your desktop through easy-to-use chart, table, and map-making programs. Photographs are also available. To download go to http://www.northeastern.edu/dukakiscenter/resources/boston_renaissance/.

Tinkerplots, an ongoing project of the Statistics Education Research Group (SERG), associated with the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute (SRRI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Tinkerplots is data analysis software being developed for middle school students under the direction of Cliff Konold of SRRI. A set of basic software operations, Tinkerplots allows students to build their own plots to analyze data. Students graph data by progressively organizing individual cases on the screen; they drag cases into separate groups and then order and stack them. Tinkerplots is being developed to teach students data analysis in line with recommendations of the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Tinkerplots is targeted for release in April 2004. A beta version is available for testing.
http://www.umass.edu/srri/serg/projects/tp/tpmain.html

ResearchNet, a pilot program of the Boston Fed's economic education unit

ResearchNet is designed to support students doing primary research into the economy of their local community. Students examine the capital, trade, and technology affecting a particular town or region. The program provides a network of experts and other resources to support their work. Students' final projects may be a videotape, audiotape, poster exhibit, PowerPoint presentation, web site, or publication. ResearchNet is intended to nurture local economic research and provide an extended venue for celebrating students’ research into the economic history of their communities.

One example of this type of work:

• A ten-unit lesson plan, “Celebrating Economics through Local Business History,” prepared for middle school students by Paul Friedmann, teaching fellow. It was taught for the first time in the spring of 2003 at the R.G. Shaw Middle School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Contact Scott Guild, director of economic education at the Boston Fed, at 617-973-3639 for more information on ResearchNet.