Tuva Collections

Announcing the latest Tuva Collection on the United States Government

What are the underlying foundations of the United States government? What are the functions of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government and how do they work with each other? Who are the 8 chief justices currently in the United States Supreme Court? What are the demographics of our Senate and the House of Representatives?

Today, we are excited to announce the latest Tuva Collection on the US Government for Tuva Premium subscribers. The US Government collection enables students to learn and critically think about the different aspects of the federal government through the lens of data.

Some of the current datasets and activities in the US Government collection include:

The demographics of the Senate and House of Representatives
Past presidents of the United States
Executive orders and vetoes by past presidents
The Electoral College and past election results

These datasets and activities are just a start. Over the coming months, we will continue to curate and publish new datasets and activities that you can use in your math, social studies, english, and other classes to explore various aspects of the US government with your students.

We are just over a month into the new administration in the White House. The US Government collection is a fantastic way to meaningfully engage our students in important civics issues through the lens of data.

Introducing the Second Tuva Science Collection — Atmosphere

“Have lights when other men are blind

As pigs are said to see the wind”

Aside from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s claim (paraphrasing William Butler), of all Earth systems, the atmosphere can be one of the hardest for (non- pig) students to perceive.

Although we breathe in atmosphere every minute, its chemistry, layers, air masses, and patterns of movement occur at large scales and are often invisible.

We can feel the wind, but how can we discern its large-scale geographical and temporal patterns? Through data, of course!

Following up from the release of our first Tuva Science Collection on Earth in Space, today we are excited to introduce Tuva’s second science collection – Atmosphere.

Typhoon Halong Seen from the International Space Station

The Atmosphere Collection includes datasets and activities that explore differences among vertical layers in the atmosphere, geographic variability in atmospheric pollutants, and temporal changes in components of the atmosphere such as the stratospheric ozone layer.

Some of the activities also explore weather and climate data to make sense of how air masses move.

Key ideas supported by datasets and activities in Tuva’s Atmosphere Collection include:

The size of the Antarctic ozone hole changes seasonally and is correlated with atmospheric concentrations of CFCs.
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other pollutants have increased during recent decades, as has human population.
Relationships between different atmospheric parameters can be modeled and predicted mathematically.
Air masses can transport pollutants from source areas to distant non-source areas.
Human actions to mitigate air pollution can improve air quality.

The activities support NGSS performance expectations, such as exploring evidence for how motions and interactions of air masses result in changes in weather conditions (MS-ESS2-5), or analyzing geoscience data to forecast of the rate of change in the ozone hole (HS-ESS3-5).

These activities also support a number of CCSS-Math standards such as modeling relationships with linear equations.

Don’t forget to give your students opportunity to explore data on their own to make their own discoveries. Help your students learn to “see the wind” — through data!

The Earth in Space and Atmosphere collections are available for Tuva Premium Subscribers.

Introducing Tuva Collections

At Tuva, our goal is to make data accessible and usable for data novices and learners, enabling them to learn and master foundational data, statistics, and analytical concepts and skills.

The Open Data Movement has catalyzed something incredibly powerful – free, open access to millions of datasets from a vast number of organizations such as the World Bank, NIH, NASA, CDC, NOAA, FDA, Census Bureau, Department of Education, Department of Energy, and many many others.

We believe that these open datasets can serve a powerfully unique purpose. These datasets can be transformed into opportunities for deep inquiry, exploration, and learning. They enable educators to teach and students to learn critical data exploration, visualization, analysis, and interpretation, as they dig deeper into topics aligned to their curricula and standards, their interests, or their day-to-day work.

To continue to realize on our vision, we are excited to formally announce the launch of Tuva Collections!

What is a Tuva Collection?

A collection is a group of ready-to-use datasets, activities, and lessons around a specific content area (such as Linear Models) or topic (such as Social Justice).

How many collections are on Tuva?

Currently, we have 4 Tuva Collections (and plenty more in the works!). They are:

1. Signs of Change – Discovering events and phenomena in US History using US Census Microdata

2. The Model Shop – Using data to learn about Linear Models

3. Civic Literacy Through Data – Explore social issues including gender equality, gender identity, immigration, and racial justice in the United States through the lens of data

4. Employment in NYC – Exploring Employment in NYC through the lens of the 5 Boroughs, Race, Educational Attainment, Gender, and many other factors

Are you open to collaborations to create a new Tuva Collection?

Yes – we have many more Tuva Collections in the works so please stay tuned!

We are already working with organizations such as Democracy Prep Public Schools and NYC Department of Education to design and produce our Tuva Collections.

If you are interested in collaborating with us to create a Tuva Collection, please reach out to us at hello@tuvalabs.com.

Introducing the Model Shop – Enabling Students to Learn Modeling

From the CCSS Standards of Mathematical Practice – Modeling with Mathematics practice:

“Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation. In middle grades, a student might apply proportional reasoning to plan a school event or analyze a problem in the community. By high school, a student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another.”

From the High School Common Core Standards on Modeling:

“Modeling links classroom mathematics and statistics to everyday life, work, and decision-making. Modeling is the process of choosing and using appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze empirical situations, to understand them better, and to improve decisions.”

From Science and Engineering Practice in the NGSS – Developing and Using Models practice:

“Models include diagrams, physical replicas, mathematical representations, analogies, and computer
simulations. Although models do not correspond exactly to the real world, they bring certain features into
focus while obscuring others. All models contain approximations and assumptions that limit the range of
validity and predictive power, so it is important for students to recognize their limitations.”

Building on our Signs of Change content initiative that brings history and mathematics together for students, we are excited to announce the Model Shop, our next math and science content initiative dedicated to an incredibly important concept – Modeling.

The Model Shop contains Tuva datasets and activities that enable your students to build a strong foundation about Modeling. Students get an opportunity to use elementary, linear functions to make mathematical models of real data.

Through our activities and lessons, students will get an opportunity to answer the following questions – What is a mathematical model? How is a mathematical model developed? How does the mathematical model represent our reality, and what is the meaning behind the curve and the parameters?

We are starting the Model Shop initiative with linear models, giving students an opportunity to create a model for data related to a pencil sharpener, book pages and thickness, Chinese trains, Hooke’s law, and others. Over time, we will continue to add datasets and activities beyond just linear models, including logarithmic, quadratic, exponential, and others.

All the Tuva Datasets and Activities in the Model Shop are fully accessible only to Tuva Premium customers. Learn more about Tuva Premium here or get in touch with us directly.

Introducing Signs of Change – Discovering Events & Phenomenon in US History Through Census Data

Today, we are excited to launch a brand new content Initiative called Signs of Change on Tuva. The overarching goal of this initiative is simple, yet incredibly powerful.

We want to empower learners to discover events and phenomenon in US History – events such as the Civil War, the Great Migration, the Rise of Women in the Workforce, the Baby Boom, and many others – by enabling them to explore, visualize, and analyze US Census Data from 1850 – 2000.

The US Census

It’s worth to take a side journey and learn a little bit about the US Census. The US Census is a decennial census, and is mandated by Article 1, Section of our Constitution.

The first Census after the American Revolution was conducted in 1790 (under then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson), but the 1850 Census was the landmark census in that it was the first time the Census Bureau attempted to record every member of every household, including women, children, and slaves. To note, the population of the US in the 1850 Census was 23.1 million.

The last Census took place in 2010, and it was the first time the US population exceeded 300 million!

A Dance Between History & Mathematics

The Signs of Change Initiative is a unique opportunity to connect history and mathematics for learners, enabling them to use foundational mathematics and statistics concepts to topics they are learning in their history class.

For this initiative, we plan to curate a variety of datasets from the US Census Microdata from 1850 – 2000 over the coming weeks. In addition, we will make available sample activities and lessons around these datasets that you can use immediately, or that you can modify to make them appropriate for the needs of your students.

Extending this Approach Beyond US Census

We strongly believe that this approach can be adopted well beyond just the US Census. The Census is a powerful instrument that countries around the world use to acquire and record information about their own citizens.

For all our educators outside the US – if you are interested in bringing this kind of an initiative with the Census data from your country, please submit your thoughts in Discussions or write to us directly.

Attribution

The initiative has been adapted from an actual book called Signs of Change, originally compiled and edited by Dr.Tim Erickson. The book stems from a collection of statistics projects his students conducted at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, CA in Fall 2011.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr.Tim Erickson and all the students who participated in the original project.