Data Adventures

Getting Started

A quick orientation for teachers new to Data Adventures.

What Data Adventures is

Data Adventures is a middle school curriculum that teaches data literacy through making. Instead of starting with spreadsheets, students start with what they care about — their names, their preferences, the games they play — and learn to see the data already inside.

The curriculum is organized into three Adventures of four to five lessons each — Avatar Maker (4), Festival Maker (5), and Game Maker (4). Adventures can be taught in any order, but most teachers start with Avatar Maker since it introduces the Dataverse story.

Before the first lesson

  1. Choose your Adventure. If this is your first time teaching Data Adventures, start with Avatar Maker.
  2. Read the Adventure overview. Each Adventure has a unit page summarizing the arc across its lessons.
  3. Open Lesson 1 and review the prep checklist. Most lessons want about 20 minutes of teacher prep the night before.
  4. Print your materials. Each lesson lists what to print and how many copies. Study classrooms receive a classroom kit with the printed handouts and game materials, so check your kit before printing.
  5. Gather any physical supplies — stencils, stickers, googly eyes, colored pencils, highlighters, etc. The materials list distinguishes between consumables and one-time prep.
  6. Send the family letter home. The Maker Space Family Letter introduces Data Adventures to families; send it before Lesson 1 of your first Adventure.

Program-wide resources

  • Data Habits of Mind Poster — an 18x24 poster of the four habits (Curiosity, Perseverance, Communication, Understanding Context). One per classroom, provided by the project.
  • Big Ideas in Data Glossary — student-friendly definitions, teacher notes, and misconceptions for the data concepts, graph types, and Data Habits of Mind used across the Adventures.
  • Data Habits of Mind Tracker — the student graphic organizer introduced in Avatar Maker Lesson 2 and used for closing reflections across all three Adventures.

What’s on each lesson page

Every lesson page is laid out the same way so you can find what you need in the same place every time:

  • Overview — what the lesson is about and where it fits.
  • Student Objectives — the “I can…” statements for the lesson.
  • At a Glance — section-by-section pacing for the class period.
  • Materials & Prep — what to print, gather, and set up digitally, plus what to do before you teach.
  • Slides & Teaching Guide — the lesson deck with slide-by-slide speaker notes.

How to navigate

Each Adventure’s overview page shows its lessons as a visual grid, and every lesson page has previous/next links so you can move through the arc in order. The Teacher Hub home links to all three Adventures.