The idea

Anyone who loves their job has probably wanted to share it with their kids—get them excited about it, show how cool and meaningful it is. Even if they don’t follow in our footsteps, maybe they’ll at least respect and appreciate what their parents are passionate about.

Sometimes it’s just a dream, but we want to find a bright and engaging way to talk to our children about what we do for work.

That’s how it was for us—Alex and Natalia—working in the field of data visualization. We really wanted to share our world! Data visualization is amazing: it’s full of beauty and logic, sleek designs, a variety of charts, fascinating topics, and the chance to work with important data.

Moreover, working with data and visualization is not just interesting—it’s useful! Especially in our fast-changing world. We wanted to give children valuable skills early on so they’re ready to face the grown-up world.

We want to create shared, precious memories: to capture that magical moment when a child is still curious enough to wonder, “What does Mom or Dad do at work?”

So we thought: let’s tell and show them!

With these thoughts in mind, we started exploring the idea.

Natalia already had experience creating data viz characters and telling stories about them, but now she wanted to make stories not for adults; but for kids. Still all about data visualization. Alex already had experience writing books!

And we wanted to bring this story to life as a book!

We agreed to start the project and went off to brainstorm, sketch, and imagine!

Characters and first sketches

What’s a book without characters? Natalia decided it’d be better not to make them diagram-like people, but cute monsters or creatures. This way, they’d be easier for kids to tell apart—and we’d avoid having a big crowd of kids running around the book (great for comics, but not ideal for a storybook).

Naturally, the prototype for the girl character was Natalia’s own daughter, Maya—a curly-haired girl with red pigtails who loves bunnies. Over time, the character changed—her hair, color, and age evolved, which is completely normal.

We decided to name the girl Christine!

Then came the pie chart character. In the data viz community, the pie chart is often viewed with skepticism due to its limitations and how easily it can be misused. It’s unfortunate, because people do love the bright, round pie chart—it’s just part of reality. The trick is learning to use it well.

Our first diagram character was a pie chart, and we called him Piechi. Since pie charts need careful handling, Natalia imagined Piechi as a kind of dog that needs to be trained—not to overeat!

Everyone who learned about the book instantly loved Piechi. He became the mascot of the story and our favorite character—just like pie charts: lovable, though not always easy to manage.

Later, we started developing the Dad character, bits of the plot, and other chart-characters.
We tried several versions of the Dad—he’s a tired, somewhat sad data professional. But (spoiler!) this is so he can become joyful again by the end of the story.

At this early stage, the other chart characters were still not fully formed. But we did keep some early sketches of them too.

The plot

So, you have an idea who this book is about—but what actually happens in it?

We decided to go with a plot as old as time: a girl travels into a mysterious world of data to rescue her father, who’s gone missing within it!

Alex worked on the twists and turns of the plot, inventing obstacles and adventures, vividly describing the challenges on Christine’s path to save her dad. He also dreamed up the mysterious chart characters who not only help Christine on her journey but teach her how to use each chart properly!

Each chart has its own personality and unique “diet.” They’ll share those secrets in the book, too!

Christine bravely journeys toward her goal—a mysterious Data Tower always shimmering on the distant horizon—accompanied by her loyal chart friends, overcoming tricky challenges to discover what happened to her father and to rescue him!

Illustrations

Of course, making a book isn’t easy. We started with the plot and text. We outlined the key story points and structure. Afterwhich, Natalia did a storyboard while Alex finished writing all the text. That’s how we finally understood the storyline, the placement and meaning of illustrations, and completed the manuscript.

Then came the time to draw!

Natalia can draw, but mainly in small formats. She didn’t have experience with book illustration, and creating book artwork takes a lot of time—especially while working and raising a small child. It became clear we wouldn’t finish the illustrations in a year… or even two. So we decided to look for help and find ourselves a wonderful illustrator!

This too was a challenge—we needed a style both authors liked, someone with experience in children’s books, available time, and ideally some familiarity with data visualization.

All the illustrators were incredibly talented, though we couldn’t work with everyone. But it was amazing to see different takes on our characters—Piechi in particular got a lot of interpretations!

We tried out a few spreads with different illustrators before finally choosing Anastasiya Lykova as our lead illustrator. She has a young child herself, so the story resonated with her—and we loved her soft and expressive illustration style.

We didn’t want the book to be just a story—we wanted it to be useful too. So we included a chart chooser, and pages with profiles on each chart-character at the end of the book.

What’s next?

To start telling the world about the book, we put together a website introducing the story and its characters—the charts! Now this website has grown into a full-fledged data project for kids: Data2Kids! It includes a children’s competition, educational materials, merch, and of course, this book.

We even want to bring together a local community of data-parents and try out this format all together!

And we wanted to create more opportunities for shared activities between children and parents.

We decided to make a little workbook for kids: with fun, simple data visualization tasks, drawing prompts, unusual challenges, and ways to spend time together collecting data and making charts. The workbook is currently in development, and we’re testing the first version with our local community!

With the book finally published and a growing local community of parents and children learning data visualization alongside the book’s characters, we’re excited to launch an international children’s data-visualization competition—Data Kids!

Dates will be announced soon—meanwhile, you can already explore examples of children’s data-viz projects and educational practices from our local contest and subscribe to the project’s newsletter! 

We’d be happy to see you there! And we really hope to run more data-visualization activities for kids this spring! We also decided to create a themed workbook where the book’s characters will help children practice creating and using charts.

If you’re interested in the Data2Kids project, and want to help introduce kids to the world of data and dataviz, check our book Christine and the Magic Charts!

Thanks for reading!

We hope that, like us, you want to pass on the magic of this unusual but fascinating profession to the next generation!

The post Christine and the Magic Charts: A Data Visualization Book for Kids appeared first on Nightingale.

On the day of the event, I arrived 10 minutes before the allotted time, parked my very reliable Honda CRV, and entered the school. The teacher greeted me at the door and we took the stairs to classroom 4-B. Just before entering the class, I said a little prayer and entered the room.

It was a different step, very much so from what I am used to in the ‘corporate world.’ There were no phones, no laptops; these kids were actually talking to each other. As I entered the room, the attention shifted and now all eyes were on me. I could also feel my heart beating a little faster.

“Are you Mr. Gulrez?” one kid asked.
I cleared my throat and said, “Yes, I am. Do you know me?”
“I have your book and it has your picture in it. You were young.”

I realized that picture was taken some 10 years ago (even before these kids were born..lol) at Microsoft when our leadership called a professional photographer for a headshot in Building 5. 

I laughed (at myself) and thought about shifting gears. “Should I open my laptop and walk through the slides I created?” I asked myself. However, “Wouldn’t that be boring for these little kids?”

“Achoo!”

The sneeze came from Anas, sitting in the second row.

Then, two more: “Achoo! Achoo!”

I walked to the whiteboard, and wrote…

I turned around and the kids were laughing. Anas looked at me and shrugged. 

“Do you think this is data?” I asked.

Laughter erupted. One student whispered, “That’s not data!”

“Why not?” I asked.

Just then, Anas (enjoying the spotlight) added one very obvious fake sneeze.
I turned back to the board:

More laughter. Now they were hooked.

I asked, “Is anyone here good at drawing?”

And everyone raised their hand…. (hmm interesting. When I ask the same question in my corporate workshops, adults often say, I used to draw as a kid. What changed?)

Little Sara came up and drew a stick figure of Anas mid-sneeze, complete with dramatic “ACHOO!” bubbles.

Then we created—Sneeze Graph, Snore Graph, Crying Baby Graph and so on—the classroom was alive with curiosity, and creativity. 

While I couldn’t capture the video of my session, I recorded this episode to share the topics I covered and how to make it engaging for the kids.

By the time the class was over I saw the little kids completely engaged. They didn’t realize it, but they were learning to think like little data scientists, asking questions, capturing observations, and telling stories through visuals.

At first glance, it may look simple—but this playful activity opened the door to some powerful lessons for both kids and adults.

We explored patterns in snore and sneeze sounds, forecasted the pitch of the next snore, and even spotted a few outliers. And the best part? The kids were completely hooked.

Data doesn’t have to start with spreadsheets. It can start with a sneeze…;)

Your turn to play

I hope this gave you a glimpse into how to introduce data to the younger audience…simply by using everyday moments and data from our daily lives.

In my book Drawing Data with Kids, you’ll find many more simple, playful activities that families can do together to explore data, ask questions, and learn in a fun, hands-on way.

Learning data doesn’t always need a screen. We can use just a little curiosity, crayons and make it fun.

The post Data Doesn’t Have to Start with Spreadsheets. It Can Start with a Sneeze. appeared first on Nightingale.

It was my 7-year-old son, always ready for an adventure.

“Sure, come along, but hurry, we need to look for the new crescent moon tonight,” I told him.

It was the evening before Ramadan, and based on the Moon sighting, the Imam would announce its official start.

“Yes! I’m very excited.” He quickly grabbed his kufi (cap) and jacket and ran toward the car.
“Abbu, how was your day today?” he asked. Before I could answer, he continued, “My day was very busy! We went swimming in the morning and had a field trip in the afternoon. It was a packed day.”

As he chattered away, I listened, smiling. After a long workday filled with meetings and deadlines, my son’s excited storytelling was a refreshing change.

But as a data nerd, I couldn’t help but start visualizing his day as a timeline in my head.

“Abbu, you didn’t tell me—how was your day?” he interrupted my thoughts.
“Oh, well! I was just working from home most of the day.”
“So you went to the mosque in the morning, and now you’re out again?” he asked.
“Barkhurdar,” I said, “You know what? We could actually create a visualization of how much time we spent outside today!”
“Yes! I love it. It’s been a while since we created some graphs together.”

By the time we reached the mosque, he was already thinking about how to chart his day. After the prayer, the Imam announced the arrival of Ramadan—30 days of fasting and reflection.

Later that night, my son reminded me about our timeline idea, and together, we created a visual representation of his day.

More importantly, it reignited his curiosity about using data to understand his world.

Inspired by this moment, I created a Ramadan Data Journal—a way to track and visualize how we spend our time during Ramadan, making each day more intentional. Hope more families can use and benefit from it.

Your turn to play

Many parents encourage their kids to journal their day, but adding visuals can make it even more meaningful. A simple timeline of the day can tell a story, spark reflective conversations about time management, and build critical thinking skills. If you’re looking for fun and engaging ways to boost your child’s data literacy, check out Drawing Data with Kids—a book filled with creative ideas to help them explore the world of data!

The post From Moonsighting to Ramadan Data Journaling appeared first on Nightingale.

Rough translation of the above lines goes something like this:
“These are just balloons
filled with air.
If you prick them with a needle,
they will burst.

People don’t become bombs when they are angry!

Have you ever been intimidated by people who are experiencing intense anger or sadness?

While I am still researching the mood swings of adults, I can say for sure that it doesn’t take long to cheer up the kids. A simple tickle or a playful game can instantly brighten up their day.

The other day, Pariza was sitting at the kitchen table, her eyebrows furrowed in disappointment as she stared at the Scrabble board in front of her. 

Her best friend Zoeya had just left after a fun evening of playing board games, but Pariza was feeling down because she had lost the latest game of Scrabble.

“What’s the matter, Parizu?” I asked, noticing her sad expression.
“Didn’t you have a good time with Zoeya?”
“Yes, we had a great time, but I lost the game and it’s so frustrating,” she said, sighing heavily.

First I teased her, but looking at the seriousness of the situation, I tried to comfort her. “It’s okay to lose sometimes, Parizu. That’s just part of the game. You can always try again and see if you could do better next time.”

She nodded but was still unconvinced, so I offered her my data skills to analyze the game so she could improve the next time =)

She quickly ran to bring the score:

“Wow! This looks like a close game,” I said looking at the score 
“Yes! That’s why it is more disappointing.” 

I wanted to see the trend as opposed to how much they scored in each round, so we went and calculated the running total of their scores.

We first plotted the different points for Pariza’s score:

“Abbu,” Pariza said, “this starts to look like the growth chart the doctor shows me in every visit.”

Ha ha! This indeed reminds me of the growth chart =)

She then connected the dots:

Then we did a similar exercise for Zoeya’s score:

And just like for Pariza, we connected these dots:

“Oh my God! I was leading all the way, Abbu,” Pariza exclaimed with surprise, standing there with her mouth wide open.
“Yes! You were a clear winner but just got beaten with a very small margin in the end.”
“Zoeyu got the letter Q in the last round. She used it to make the word EQUIP with it and got 3 times points as she touched triple point tile.”
“So, Parizu, you now know that you need to target those in the next game.” I tried to pitch in my recommendation just as I do to the business stakeholders

Your turn to play

Next time you play Scrabble or your favorite board game, don’t throw away the scores. Just like shown in this article, you could use it to analyze the scores and create a wonderful data visualization. For more engaging ways to boost your kids’ data literacy, be sure to check out Drawing Data with Kids. It’s packed with creative ideas to help them explore the world of data!

The post Cultivating Data Literacy with Board Games appeared first on Nightingale.

Who is Daphne, and why has she captured the imagination of so many? Her creator, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, knows the answer better than anyone. “I’ve always felt that data storytelling is a skill we all need but too often discover too late,” Cole explained during a recent interview. “I wanted to create a character that could inspire the next generation—one that would make data feel approachable, even fun.” Cole and Nightingale Managing Editor William Careri discussed the book and Daphne’s origins.

Daphne’s story begins in her cave, where she is ridiculed for her unconventional skills. Fueled by a desire to find where she truly belongs, she embarks on an adventure across jungles, oceans, and outer space, helping those she meets by collecting and illustrating data. Through her journey, she doesn’t just solve problems—she introduces young readers to the visual language of graphs, unlocking their potential to explore the world with curiosity and imagination.

For readers of Daphne Draws Data, the lesson is clear: data isn’t just numbers or charts—it’s a way to tell stories about ourselves and our world. As Cole shared, “When kids see data as something they can use to answer their own questions, they develop a superpower that stays with them for life.”

Inspiring curious minds—for kids and professionals alike

For data visualization professionals, Daphne Draws Data offers more than just a charming story for children—it’s a reminder of the power of foundational skills and how early exposure can shape perspectives. While many adults discover the potential of data visualization through their careers, this book invites professionals to think about how they can pass this knowledge on to the next generation in accessible and imaginative ways.

Cole sees this as a shared opportunity for parents and educators alike. “Graphs are the visual language of numbers,” she says. “When kids learn this language early, they approach problems differently—creatively, collaboratively, and with an open mind.” By engaging young readers through Daphne’s adventures, the book teaches concepts like bar charts, scatter plots, and line graphs without the jargon, building intuition rather than simply instructing.

But it’s not just for children. For the data visualization professional reading Daphne Draws Data with their kids, it’s an opportunity to rediscover their own craft. By stepping into the shoes of young learners—those who see data as puzzles to solve rather than rules to follow—professionals can reconnect with the creative spark that drew them to this field in the first place. Whether it’s imagining data points as colorful shapes or seeing graphs as tools for storytelling, the book fosters a sense of play that’s sometimes lost in the complexity of professional work.

Daphne Draws Data is a springboard for conversations about curiosity and critical thinking. Cole shares how she encourages her own children to track data about their daily lives—how much sleep they get, their moods, or their bedtime habits—and then interpret their findings. For professionals, these everyday experiments can inspire new ways to think about personal projects or even professional challenges.

The value doesn’t stop there. Educators can use the book as a classroom tool to make math and STEM concepts more engaging. Parents can use it to bond with their children over shared discovery, and professionals can even incorporate its lessons into team-building exercises or workshops. At its heart, Daphne’s story reminds us that data isn’t just a tool for decision-making—it’s a way to connect with others and see the world more clearly.

As Daphne’s journey continues to captivate readers, one can’t help but wonder what adventures she might embark on next. Could she inspire new classroom activities, spark a love of data visualization in a future scientist, or even influence the way professionals approach their own work? One thing is certain: whether you’re a parent, an educator, or simply someone passionate about the stories data can tell, Daphne Draws Data has something for everyone.

Designing Daphne

Before she became the whimsical dragon who draws data, Daphne existed only as a rough sketch—lines on paper that hinted at the vibrant character she would eventually become. Her journey from an idea to the dynamic protagonist of Daphne Draws Data is a story in itself, one filled with creativity, collaboration, and a little help from the youngest members of Cole’s family.

It began with a roll of butcher paper stretched out across the floor, where Cole and her children set to work. Their task? Drawing aliens, spaceships, and, of course, dragons. “My kids were so enthusiastic,” Cole shared. “They filled the paper with all these wild ideas, and their sketches became the starting point for Daphne and her world.” From their creations, Cole drew her own versions of the characters, setting the stage for the next phase: handing the reins to a professional illustrator.

Enter John Skewes, whose drafts offered two wildly different interpretations of Daphne. “That’s where the fun really started,” Cole said. “We had this great conversation about what worked in each version, and the final Daphne came to life as a mix of ideas from all three designs.” Traces of her early iterations remain in the finished character.

The graphs, too, were a labor of love. Cole’s initial sketches laid the groundwork, but the team worked to ensure they were not only clear but also engaging and intuitive for young readers. “We iterated so much,” Cole said, laughing. “Balancing simplicity with storytelling is harder than it looks.”

The result of this meticulous process is a book that’s as visually compelling as it is meaningful. Daphne’s world isn’t just a backdrop—it’s a vibrant extension of her story, one that invites readers of all ages to step inside and explore.

Additional resources

Daphne Draws Data Educators Page: a one-stop shop for educators to incorporate Daphne into their teachings—videos, handouts, an online community, and more.

Daphne Draws Data YouTube Channel: a dozen and more videos showcasing Daphne as she walks through various lessons on relatable topics.

You can order a copy of Daphne Draws Data on her official website. Have you read Daphne Draws Data? Consider leaving an Amazon review!

The post Meet Daphne, the Dragon on the Back of Nightingale Issue 5 appeared first on Nightingale.

The story follows Daphne, who uses everyday examples to explain key ideas like algorithms and statistics. She explores how polar bears dive deeply or which spaceships can fly home by breaking data into colors. The book also encourages hands-on learning through activities such as creating charts or drawing data representations, helping kids build problem-solving skills while having fun. Daphne also learns that she can turn this data into brilliant stories and that throughout all of her adventures, she was gaining so much more than learning the data visualization process—she was learning who she was.

“Then she realized she was making friends by being herself.”
— Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Daphne Draws Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic offers a delightful introduction to the world of data visualization, artistry, math, and data science for young readers. The book successfully breaks down complex concepts into playful ideas, encouraging children to view math and data through the lens of creativity.

A Fun, Visual Approach to Learning

Daphne Draws Data excels at blending art with data. Its colorful illustrations not only captivate children’s attention but also serve as powerful teaching tools. Through these visuals, kids learn how data can be transformed into pictures, charts, and stories. The book makes numbers and patterns accessible and fun, sparking curiosity in even the youngest readers. This dynamic approach helps children grasp essential math and science concepts through creativity.

Simple Explanations of Big Ideas

Rather than overwhelming young readers with jargon, Daphne Draws Data introduces key topics like data visualization, algorithms, and statistics through relatable and fun examples. The explanations are clear, concise, and designed to inspire curiosity and further exploration.

Hands-On Learning and Imagination

Interactive activities, such as creating charts to visualize how many books a child has read or drawing pictures to represent different types of data, give kids the opportunity to apply their new knowledge. These exercises are more than just fun—they reinforce critical ideas and help build problem-solving skills. By blending learning with play, the book provides an engaging and hands-on approach that deepens understanding. 

Encouraging Critical Thinking

Another strength of Daphne Draws Data is its ability to promote critical thinking. Throughout the book, the author poses questions that challenge children to think more deeply about data and its uses. This active engagement empowers young readers to take charge of their learning journey, rather than passively absorbing information.

Potential for Development

Overall, Daphne Draws Data is an excellent resource for introducing children to data visualization, math, and art, providing an enjoyable and educational experience by simplifying complex concepts through creativity and play. With a few additional resources for continued learning, this book has the potential to become an even more valuable tool for budding data scientists, artists, and problem-solvers alike. To support long-term engagement and deeper exploration, enhancements such as a companion deck of challenge cards or a workbook could enrich the experience, offering a range of activities at varying skill levels that encourage children to deepen their understanding of data and math. Also, an interactive journal or sketchbook where readers can document their experiments and progress would solidify the lessons learned and provide an opportunity for reflection and growth throughout their learning journey. 

To End

Daphne Draws Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic offers a delightful introduction to the world of data visualization, artistry, math, and data science for young readers. The book successfully breaks down complex concepts into playful ideas, encouraging children to view math and data through the lens of creativity. There is so much more here than just numbers, graphs, and data—this is a true journey and adventure through not only Daphne’s life, but the life of a child discovering who they really are through the joys of discovering data visualization. 

You can purchase Daphne Draws Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic on Amazon or on the official website.

The post Review: Daphne Draws Data appeared first on Nightingale.

The book centers around a ten-year-old girl named Pariza and her father, lovingly referred to as Abbu. Pariza loves playing games and has a knack for identifying patterns, which she turns into data visualizations with the help of her father. Each chapter begins with a story about Pariza to provide real-life context for the visualization, followed by a summarization of key ideas and terms, and finally a prompt to try it out for yourself. 

The chapter structure does an excellent job of progressing the reader through data visualization concepts in a sequential manner, with each chapter building on the previous one. For example, the book starts with foundational chapters on data organization and graph construction before diving into more complex strategies around larger data sets and comparisons. In the final chapters, Khan introduces design considerations like color, shape, and imagery, which add interest and clarity to the visualizations.

With its playful art style and typesetting, Drawing Data with Kids never feels intimidating or unapproachable. Which is important because the book also encourages you to make a mess! It’s fine to draw in the book, scribble on some graph paper, collage with flowers—whatever it takes to get your hands involved and develop that dexterity. The book is meant to be thrown into the learning process and not delegated to the bookshelf like a precious keepsake.

Gulrez Kahn has crafted a great introduction for children to learn what data visualization is all about. The engaging stories, clever chapter structures, DIY spirit, and emphasis on screen-free visualizations makes Drawing Data with Kids a great catalyst to spend quality time with kids learning something new. I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of entertainment and learning it provided to me and my daughter.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are Amazon Affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

The post Review: Drawing Data with Kids appeared first on Nightingale.

As middle school teachers, we have noticed how data visualisations benefit young learners.  Namely, it allows them to improve their data literacy. Learning data literacy can help students to understand, analyse, interpret, and gain insights from data. It can also give them the critical skills to engage with an ever-increasingly complex world. Second, learning data visualisation helps to foster middle schoolers’ creativity and problem-solving skills, crucial for innovation and collaboration. Data visualisation can challenge them to see their world beyond what is visible, to make decisions based on data, and find new ways to express their ideas. Third, it enhances their communication and presentation skills, which are vital for sharing their knowledge and opinions with others. Data visualisation can help them craft compelling stories and arguments with data.

We saw these benefits first-hand when we incorporated data visualisation into a curriculum for middle school students in Jakarta, Indonesia, from March 2023 to June 2023. Over this time, we focused on teaching data and its type, exposing the students to many kinds of data visualisation. Then, we turned to making data visualisation through project-based learning so that they could obtain, understand, analyse, interpret, and present data throughout the creation process.

Teaching and Learning in SMP Kembang

Situated in the middle of an urbanscape, Kembang middle school (known locally as SMP Kembang) in South Jakarta is a non-formal middle school that offers a progressive learning process by involving students as members of the community and invites them to gain firsthand experience through interaction with a local context, learning from experts, field trips, and various creative endeavours. In SMP Kembang, project-based learning is the backbone of the learning program and all teaching approaches, which enables students to own their learning process and choose topics based on their personal learning interests.

Each school year is divided into four learning quarters or units, with a robust theme assigned to each learning unit, which also becomes the theme for students’ projects. Each nine-week unit starts with thematic or topical exploration. Students are exposed to various topics related to the theme by learning with teachers and guest speakers, doing hands-on experiments, and exploring various sources of information (including literature study, watching videos, and browsing the internet), all permeated with discussions and reflections. By the third week, students brainstorm some project ideas and conceptualise the project in a project plan or proposal. The following weeks focus on execution and production, all in preparation for the final presentation to peers, teachers, and public audience. Sometimes, their final projects are shown in an internal or external exhibition after evaluation and refinement during the final week.

A Project-Based Learning Unit on Data Visualisation

In one of these project-based learning units, we ask students to explore the realm of data visualisation. Before starting the unit, we discussed the end goals for the term with the students and came up with the key question: How do we present complex data (and represent complexities) in a simple, interesting and meaningful way? Based on this big question as our goal, we identified their learning needs and started to design the curriculum.

It’s important for teenagers in today’s world to understand firsthand the importance of learning data visualisation, and so their first week started with discussions around the small and big data that are easily found online, mainly from Data Viz Project and Satu Data Indonesia. We continued by exploring the basics of data visualisation by learning types of data (qualitative and quantitative, discrete and continuous), statistics, basic data visualisation (such as pie chart, scatter plot, and line graph), and creative data visualisation (such as sankey diagram, exploded view drawing, progress bar, choropleth map).

The first week ended with a mini project, to help students apply and demonstrate what they learned. They tried to collect data from their classmates in any topic they are interested in and create a data visualisation by hand based on the data they collected. As this is their first project in their first week, they were creating simple diagrams such as pie charts and bar graphs, but there was one group that tried to make a chord diagram about classmates’ seating partner preferences. 

In the second week, students continued learning topics from the first week, such as statistics. We also had a session with Arran Ridley, a data visualisation researcher. The session started with a lecture about data types. We also discussed data storytelling and how data visualisation can be utilised to convey messages and make an impact. After this, students were given a group activity to make a data visualisation by combining two types of data. They were allowed to use imaginary data.

One group of students made a set of information about capybaras consisting of imaginary facts. Students that like anime made creative bar charts about the heights of various Kaiju. Another group mapped African dictators and the number of deaths attributed to them during their periods of rule. The other two groups made an imaginary data visualisation, one about the hobbies of some people using chord diagrams, and the other predicted populations of Indonesian living abroad in 2050. Through the session, students were getting more confident to explore the topic they like and use different types of data visualisation. They also gained more knowledge and could distinguish between quantitative and qualitative data. 

The students continued their learning by brainstorming ideas for their projects. They made three lists inside three separate circles, each containing (1) various topics of their interests, (2) questions that sparked their curiosity, and (3) data visualisation types that they’d like to explore. They marked the most interesting topic, question, and data visualisation and drew lines to connect questions, topics, and data visualisations that could be merged. This process helped them to think creatively about the data they might use and make decisions based on the most interesting and feasible topic in a given time frame. Some topics they chose included the most endangered animals, drugs in Indonesia, human emotions, the world cup, weekend schedule, trans java toll, sinking Jakarta, perception towards music, and junk food among adolescents. We were amazed to witness how the students even discussed some sensitive and controversial topics with ease, for they see it as a part of human reality that needs to be learned and explored, free from prejudice, stigmas, and conflict of interest.

After choosing a topic and planning on their project, students started to do research and collect data. This time, most students chose the internet as their data source. This might be caused by the wider topic scope compared to the previous project. To help them consider other options, we discussed each data collection method’s pros and cons. As a result, their data collection method became more varied. Some still preferred to collect data from the Internet, but some others tried to use observation and surveys, utilising interviews and questionnaires. They collect various data, such as frequencies of natural disasters in Japan, adolescent behaviour towards junk food, Java Island’s toll road development over time, dominant flavours of Indonesian food in several regions, and effectiveness and comfort of friends’ preferred working spot. 

While collecting data, they also decided on the data visualisation type they planned to use. However, this could also be changed as they found more interesting data visualisation types. On their first try, students made their first data visualisation draft. Their aim was to make it as good as their first mini project. The draft would not be their final product, as there would be a lot of revisions. From previous experience in mini projects, students still have some improvement ideas. Therefore, in working on the data visualisation, we try to make the process iterative between drafts and revisions. 

In this case, students learned to use effective data visualisation to present their information and ideas. They even considered the colour, font, and other details to ensure their data visualisation sends the message they want. Throughout the process, students encountered some challenges: organising and linking data from many sources, choosing the data visualisation suitable for their data type and quantity, making a hand-drawn grid and using a scale, choosing handwriting styles and colour palettes to create unity in visual composition, and maintaining the quality of their final products. 

As the students finished the project, they were given an opportunity to present and exhibit their final product in an art space in Jakarta. The audience included other students, teachers, parents, public visitors and viewers on social media. The students explained their data visualisation, prompting discussion on the impacts of the data and feedback from different perspectives. From the students’ presentation, we captured some reflections such as:

• “It’s difficult to find data about illegal substances in Indonesia because different sources state different information. I need to be extra careful of the data I could trust.”
• “I hope through my project I could influence other people to actively protect our environment.”
• “This is the most challenging project so far. For me, it should be highly scientific and highly artistic at the same time.”
• “I’ve just realised that this was the first time I involved my classmates on my project. Previously, I tend to choose topics that could be learnt through the internet.”
• “I am so happy to learn many kinds of diagrams that could visualise data. I could see the benefit of it to deliver different messages and information to the people.”

Here is a collection of images from the final showing:

Reflections and Some Insights From the Project

Seeing the impact of this unit so far, we decided to make this topic (data visualisation) one of the mandatory project topics for all students. From this whole process, we’ve obtained some key takeaways that could be applied the next time we explore this theme and for other teachers that are interested in teaching data visualisation to middle school students:

• Conducting various data collection methods is a key learning experience.

Interestingly, all of the students chose the interview as the data collection method for their mini project, probably because, given the short amount of time, it was easier for them to interview their peers than to collect data from other reference materials. At the beginning of their main project, the majority of them chose the Internet as their data source. From this result, there’s a need for students to get experience in trying different data collection methods before doing their projects.

• Data can also be collected in the visualisation itself.

When collecting data from their peers, some students directly recorded the data, such as interview answers on their data visualisation media, such as on numeric scale and chord diagram.

• Revision and refinement play an important role.

After seeing their results in the mini project, students realised that it was possible to continue to make improvements even after submitting their final result. When we applied this practice of iteration and revision to their final project, we could see significant improvements in the quality of their projects.

• Document and archive all project drafts.

During their project development, students had a lot of raw data compilations, processed data, experiments, drafts, journals, sketches, diagram dummies, and other forms of documentation. We teachers found that it would help both students and teachers to keep track of the project development if this inventory is managed and organised throughout the process. Going forward, we plan to find a strategy to archive all those artefacts to increase clarity and support a systematic process in data visualisation. 

• Presenting data in various ways provokes community engagement and vice versa.

During the process of gathering data, students engage with friends to obtain some information, thus making them participate as part of the community. This exercise, in combination with the public exhibition and presentation process, gave students the sense that their data matters to the community.

Beyond all that, both students and ourselves, the teachers, could deeply see data not just as a result of gathering facts from the world but as a tool to make meaning of reality. The process of visualising data helped us to discover the interconnectedness between our experience and this world of data. Visualising data becomes a portal for us to engage with difficult or complex topics. Data allows students to critically analyse one topic or issue from many perspectives and fields of study, ranging from socio-cultural and political to medical and environmental lenses. It’s an integral part of learning about their world, and we are so pleased that they can now take these skills and dispositions forward. 

The post <strong>Teaching Data Visualisation to Middle Schoolers in Jakarta</strong> appeared first on Nightingale.

To make things easy, we’ve included versions in both US letter and A4 sizes. Be sure to print double-sided and at 100% (no resizing necessary)!

US Letter Version:

A4 Version:

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Lalena Fisher is a multi-talented creative with a diverse background in journalism, painting, graphic design, and music. She has designed for shows like Blue’s Clues and The Wonder Pets, created information graphics for The New York Times, and written and illustrated children’s books. Lalena also has a career in music, including a mother-and-daughter heavy rock duo, The Mothermold. Her work reflects her fascination with dichotomies in life and her desire to challenge them. Through her art, she explores themes related to family, gender, strength, and dominance, shining a light on the absurdity of assumptions about all dualities.

Lalena’s latest children’s book, Friends Beyond Measure (HarperKIDS), combines her expertise in illustration and infographics to tell a heartwarming story of friendship. The book follows the journey of two friends, Ana and Harwin, and explores how their bond is tested when a major change in their lives threatens to shake things up.

In this interview, we have a chance to learn more about Lalena’s creative process, her inspirations, and how she brings together seemingly disparate fields to create something truly unique.

Where did the inspiration to write a children’s book through data visualization come from?

Designing for Blue’s Clues, a show for preschoolers, sparked my desire to create my own children’s stories. After a lot of learning and drafting, I had a book ready to pitch to publishers. But that book was not Friends Beyond Measure! It was a lyrical bedtime book. And in the pitching process, someone looked into my background and commented that I might also consider creating a children’s book with infographics. I thought this was an interesting idea.

So I checked out all the children’s books I could find that had information graphics. I saw a number of beautiful nonfiction ones, like Animals By the Numbers, and Professor Astro Cat’s Atomic Adventure. No point in trying to top those! I wanted to do something different—something that would stand out.

I wondered if charts and graphs and maps could be used to tell a children’s story — one with an emotional arc. This seemed like a fun challenge. I had never seen this before. My good friend was moving across the world at the time, and I was quite sad about it; so I tapped into my own feelings for Friends Beyond Measure.

The book’s proposal is an original idea, and we can see it was executed with a lot of care on how much a child between the ages of four and eight would understand. What were the editor’s inputs on how this would be received/perceived by children?

The feedback I got from my HarperCollins team, who were wonderful, had mainly to do with narrative arc and story points. There was one chart they thought would be hard for kids to understand—it was a scatter plot. I could see how it might be a bit confusing to a child, so I replaced it with the set of “parts to a whole” charts—a type that I didn’t previously include, but that is very useful and common. So it was a good change.

A common subject in kids’ literature is to surround, in the most playful way, subjects that are hard for the infant brain to handle—like feelings, body changes, being far from a loved one. As a second issue, your book also tackles data education. In a world that seems to ignore the need for data literacy, how do you see the potential of your book in being the first contact of children with this universe, with this skill? 

I hope Friends Beyond Measure sparks conversations with kids and grown-ups about visual communication as well as emotions. And about how people close to each other can have big differences.
Visual thinking comes naturally to a lot of kids — it did to me (though I was also very verbal and a voracious reader). Dr. Temple Grandin has been bringing a lot of attention to this in recent years, pointing out that we can’t afford to neglect these skills in kids; we must cultivate them. It could even be that some kids will understand the book more intuitively than their grown-ups, who for their part can, while reading the book with their kiddos, ease into more comfort and enjoyment with graphs, maps, and diagrams. And feelings too!

Your background is in journalism, with a Master of Fine Arts degree and a career in music. You were also a contributing graphics editor for The New York Times, designing diagrams and charts for news and for the science section. How did science and data become one of your interests and part of your work?

Artists and scientists have traits in common: curiosity and imagination.

As a small child, when I asked how babies are made and grow, my mom wanted me to know the truth. And growing up, I was surrounded by recurring family illness, so the language of medical science became second nature. My family spent a lot of time at the Gulf of Mexico, and marine biology captured my imagination; the oceans hold so many mind-boggling creatures. And I loved tracking hurricanes, using maps printed on grocery bags during hurricane season.

I was not a kid who liked arithmetic; it was boring and tedious. That’s why it’s important to me to help kids see more of the fun in math. I did love drawing, and I loved organizing things. That’s the connection I make now, with my enjoyment of information graphics. And in middle school, I did a 180-turnaround in math when I started algebra; I had a great teacher, for one thing. And in algebra and the other higher maths, you basically are organizing and simplifying information, which I find almost comforting to do!

Can you describe your experience with handling data to create infographics? What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in this process and how have you overcome them?

In my earlier years at the Times, I often created science graphics, and I enjoyed drawing diagrams of organisms and systems. Appreciation of numeric data did not come as naturally; I learned how to work with it over time and how to have fun transforming it into visuals. And I now relish the opportunity to transform numbers into a visual design.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when I rejoined the Times team, my task was mainly to visualize Covid-19 data for the “Morning Newsletter.” I was examining the immense spreadsheets of cases and deaths from every county in the United States, and every country in the world, every day—it was daunting at first! But I learned from my amazing and patient colleagues how to manage it, and crunch it in all these different ways, and I grew to feel very much at home in those spreadsheets.

In your artist statement, you say that you make art that “forces dualities together, exposing the absurdity of assumptions about strength and dominance.” This contrast seems to be present in many ways in all of your work (a mother-daughter punk rock band, for example). Motherhood and the female family presence is also a strong influence. How do you see these contrasts in the experience of raising a child?

I love this question! In motherhood, I feel I am regularly swinging back and forth between asserting dominance and showing vulnerability. One way to manage that is to laugh at oneself sometimes—like I am in our song and music video for “Because I Said So”! You need your child to obey you unquestioningly sometimes, to keep them safe. But at the same time, in order for them to grow into an adult who can adapt to change and maintain strong relationships, we have to be able to show we can admit when we’re wrong, or even just don’t know what to do.

Do you see data visualization as one of these dualities? Considering that art and logic go hand in hand in this area—two things absurdly assumed as, respectively, female and male.

Some might say data visualization is a counterpoint to more organic, visceral forms of expression. But as with a lot of apparent dichotomies, I think they aren’t oppositional at all. Illustrating data is a form of communication. Does data stand in contrast to, say, feelings? One might characterize data as “facts” or “truth.” But feelings are just as real, and just as truthful. This idea is exactly what I was trying to tap into with Friends Beyond Measure.

If we are making a Venn diagram between art and data (as the main character in your book loves to do) who would be your inspiration in each one of the sections (art, data, and the intersection between them)?

Ha ha! This is great. Okay, let’s see…

The post Lalena Fisher: Telling A Children’s Story With Infographics appeared first on Nightingale.

We don’t have a television at home and my wife is quite mindful about limiting screen time for the kids, even for their studies, which means I get to become their source of entertainment. While my wife does the heavy lifting in raising them and inculcating good qualities in them, when I’m not working, I try to do my part. I spend time with them telling stories, reading books, playing board games, and drawing with them. As someone who lives and breathes data, it’s hard for me to resist bringing it into our activities. That’s how the idea of “drawing data with kids” came to be.

Introducing Pariza

Pariza is a 10-year-old, happy and curious girl. Currently she is home-schooling and I’m working from home which means we get to see each other quite often.

She likes to peek into my monitor to see what I am working on and who all I am talking to.

Since she has seen me messing around with data, it was easy to start the dataviz journey with her. In my experience working with data, I think the biggest deterrent to learning is the domain (of the data).

I think all the datasets I have seen while learning data science are heavily biased towards specific audiences. I had never heard about iris flowers before I saw them detailed in clustering tutorials. And reading about their varieties – setosa, virginica, versicolor – makes me dizzy. Same is the case with other popular datasets.

Having faced these challenges, I wanted to find a simple and yet engaging way to teach Pariza about data, something that she sees on a regular basis.

One fine day, I was lost in these thoughts and was staring at my laptop.

Making the Graph

“Abbu, I’ll make a graph of all the chocolates you eat while I’m asleep and will send it to your team.”

My train of thoughts was disturbed by Pariza’s complaint .

Me: “I think that’s a great idea, Pariza. Why don’t you bring your notebook and we will create a graph of chocolates?”

She ran excitedly to her room and got the notebook, and we started creating our dataset. Since she didn’t take the count of how many chocolates of each type she found, instead we used the count of letters in each candy name.

Pariza: “Abbu, I’m feeling hungry just staring at these names.”

Me: “Ha-ha! Let’s focus on our work now and later you might get to taste some.”

Next, we created x-axis with the number of letters and y-axis to write the name of the candies.

Then looking at our dataset we added different bars for each candy type.

We could have easily done this activity on a spreadsheet or via a programming language but would have lost the fun we had working with pen and paper. It also helped avoid additional screen time.

Your Turn to Play

Hope you enjoyed the above activity. Here’s another example you could play with:

1. Write down the name of your friends or family members and number of letters in each name, similar to the list below (just replace names below with your friends or family members).

2. Create x-axis and label it as “Number of letters”

3. On the y-axis, write the name of each family member and create bars indicating the length of each name.

4. Look for interesting patterns. What do you notice about different names?

This article was adapted from my newsletter Drawing Data with Kids, where I share my journey of teaching dataviz and analysis to my 10-year-old. Feel free to subscribe if you would be interested in similar articles delivered directly to your mailbox.

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The magazine shares page after page of beautiful visualizations, educational articles and creative ideas. As an added bonus, it also comes with a kids’ mini dataviz magazine. The children’s booklet contains data visualization stories and how-to dataviz exercises.

Nightingale and the Data Visualization Society have the mission to “foster a community where every member benefits from resources that support growth, refinement, and expansion of data visualization knowledge, regardless of expertise level.” Keeping that community aspect in mind, the magazine offers many opportunities to participate through their dataviz activities and challenges. I particularly liked the “Dear Nightingale” analogue data creation challenge from Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, authors of the dataviz journal Dear Data. The idea was to create a non-traditional data visualization (no drawing or computer graphs) using a personal dataset. This article, combined with some of the ideas from the kids data visualization articles by Gulrez Khan and Julia Krolik, inspired me to beat the heat by entering the competition with my kids.

Finding a Dataset

We decided to create our own personal dataset by hosting a puppy Olympics challenge with our two dogs, General Waggington and Ava Glitterface.

We selected 10 skills to include in our Olympic games and constructed the competition so that each dog would be given three opportunities per skill to prove their abilities.

Choosing a Visualization

We created a poster scoreboard to track the results. The scoreboard was designed to produce a mirror horizontal bar chart, and the bars were created with puppy stickers. The kids had a great time decorating the board with their own doggie drawings.

Making a 3D Visualization

While we loved our poster scoreboard, the “Dear Nightingale” analogue data creation challenge required a 3D dataviz. We held a brainstorming session and ultimately decided to keep the mirrored bar chart, but flip the chart axis to vertical and make the data visualization out of clay.

The clay turned out to be a bit tricky to work with and some of the bars were lumpy, but we had fun making the graph. Overall we are very happy with how the graph turned out, imperfections and all!

Thank You

Thanks for reading about our Ellis puppy Olympics data visualization challenge. I hope that it might spark some fun data challenges in your own homes.

Didn’t get your copy of Nightingale Magazine, Issue 1? Purchase one while supplies last!

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