N
eil Armstrong Middle School Fifth Graders on Team
Apollo paid a visit to Bethel Park High School to work
with BPHS Big Data class students on a Data Fluency/
Visualization Project that involved radon testing.
NAMS students in Joe Rosi’s classroom were tasked with
conducting radon testing in their homes and putting all of their
data into an Excel spreadsheet, which they brought with them to
the High School. The BPHS students in the Big Data class at the
High School worked with the NAMS students in small groups,
where they uploaded their data into a mapping program on their
Chromebooks, which converted their data into colored dots so
the students would
have a visual picture
of not only where
the radon testing
occurred, but also at
what levels the radon
appeared.
Before the radon
testing began, the
NAMS students did
research and found
Here’s what the NAMS students’ radon data looked like
out that radon is the
once it was mapped on a computer.
second biggest cause
of lung cancer in America, second only to smoking. They put
their findings into interactive Google presentations that included
abatement solutions, which they shared with the BPHS students
via their Chromebook computers.
This project began last summer when Mr. Rosi and BPHS
Science Teacher Lee Cristofano participated in a summer program
at Carnegie Mellon University that focused on Data Fluency.
The teachers spent time at CMU’s CREATE (Community Robotic,
Education and Technology Empowerment) Lab to explore ways to
apply the concept of data and technology fluency in their schools.
Mr. Cristofano explains the project this way, “Can you tell stories
with data?” The NAMS students did a great job collecting the
data, and thanks to some technology tools at the high school,
FIFTH GRADERS VISIT BPHS TO PARTICIPATE
IN DATA FLUENCY PROJECT