Data Science
MEI Introduction to Data Science pilot
MEI has developed a bank of resources to introduce A level Mathematics students to Data Science. This is aimed at students who have studied the first year of A level Mathematics and can be completed in the summer term of year 12 or over the summer break between years 12 and 13. The materials are currently being trialled by over 50 schools.
The resources are designed to be studied independently and are suitable to set to students who are working remotely. They feature activities that use the A level Large Data Sets as a starting point. Throughout the resources there are examples using the data sets for each specification: AQA, Edexcel, OCR, and OCR(MEI). The activities introduce the use of Python for exploring data but no prior knowledge of programming in Python is expected from students or teachers.
The aim of these materials is to give students a greater appreciation of the importance of data science to support them in making informed choices about future study/career options. They also give students an opportunity to explore the A level Large Data Sets in more detail.
The materials are split into 8 lessons:
- Introduction to Data Science
- Pre-processing and cleaning data
- Cleaning, formatting and grouping data
- Data presentation/visualisation
- Exploring association
- The Data Science cycle
- Introduction to machine learning
- What's next with Data Science
The lessons include Meet a Data Scientist videos featuring practising data scientists talking about their work.
Trialling the resources
If you are interested in the piloting these materials with your students please see: Introduction to Data Science: Information for Schools/Colleges (June 2020).
More information
For more information about MEI's data science work please contact Tom Button, MEI’s Mathematics Technology Specialist.
