Stephanie Casey, mathematics and statistics professor at Eastern Michigan University, was recently awarded a grant of $215,000 for data science and statistics education.

The award was given by the National Science Foundation for a project titled "ESTEEM II: Enhancing Data Science and Statistics Teacher Education – Transforming and Building Community."

The ESTEEM II project aims to develop teacher education curriculum materials designed to support secondary mathematics teachers in learning to teach statistics. ESTEEM II's overall focus is to prepare K-12 teachers to teach data science and statistics by building a community of partners and educators who can change undergraduate teacher education programs.

"In the teacher education curriculum materials I am authoring, I am developing data investigations grounded in contexts that are meaningful to both secondary and university students," Stephanie Casey, mathematics and statistics professor, said. "I am developing a data investigation concerning inequities in school funding. This is a context that matters to students at both levels and helps teach critical statistical literacy."

One way students can be active citizens is by critically thinking about how data is used throughout our community and how it's used by organizations that impact their lives. People need data to make predictions and understand certain explanations that are being provided to them about things such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Another way is through a student's career. A large percentage of EMU students have certain majors requiring one statistic or data science course since they are extremely important to certain fields such as biology, journalism, and psychology.

“ESTEEM II will lead to preparing students to pursue careers that need data science and statistics skills as well as to apply data literacy to their lives as active citizens in society,” Casey said in a statement.

For more information on the National Science Foundation and to learn more about the ESTEEM project, visit their website.

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