Integrating data literacy and climate science: creating multidisciplinary, data-driven social media posts in grade 10 on human-induced climate change

Abstract This study reports on a 15-hour multidisciplinary teaching unit that integrates data literacy and climate change education for grade 10 students. Grounded in social-constructivist and civic statistics principles, the unit engages learners with real datasets (global temperature, temperature and CO2 data from Vostok ice cores, and Mauna Loa CO2 data) using CODAP for visualization and piecewise trend analysis. Students create Instagram-like posts that are intended to help students integrate different disciplinary learning experiences related to climate change as a formative learning journal to communicate their data-based findings. Two classes produced 131 posts, 35 contained data-based arguments and were analyzed with qualitative content analysis against the scaffolding Statistical Communication Framework for Social Media Posts (SCFSMP). Most data-oriented posts included visualizations and described trends and patterns. Only a few to none addressed the data source, reliability of the data, or limitations of the data. Mathematical reasoning centered on linear trends and slope with some posts offering predictions. Findings indicate that combining real data sets with structured communicative tasks may foster students’ data literacy, climate understanding, and motivation. The Instagram format supported narrative engagement through comment threads. The study contributes a teaching unit, the SCFSMP for data-based social media posts in mathematics education, and evidence that data-centered inquiry can connect scientific understanding of human-induced climate change with civic aims. Positioning climate change as a data problem may help students practice reasoning with evidence and may prepare them to participate in debates.