Final Project

Note

Your Topic, audience and data set can now be submitted and are due 10/11!

Note

Your Big idea and proposed tool can now be submitted and are due 10/27! Before completing, please read through the big idea summary.

Create something remarkable!

Your job in this course is to take a raw data set and weave a story out of it. How you tell that story is up to you, but it should be effective, engaging and remarkable.

Project Requirements

All projects will produce:

  1. An insightful, data-based story with a clear connection to the “American Dream” broadly interpreted (work with raw data)
  2. A presentation of that story with a well defined audience and goals
  3. A methodology write up describing what you did to the data to produce the final story
  4. An audience assessment tool
  5. A 5-10 min presentation of the project to our class

Groups

While it is possible to produce something remarkable on your own, I’d very much like to encourage you to form groups of 2-4 for this project. It will not only make the work easier, but very often the best ideas come from collaborative communities.

Key Dates

Project examples

  • A long-form journalism article telling a data-driven story, with accompanying flat visuals, that tries to explain a complex issue of importance to a naïve audience

  • A physical sculpture for installation in a public venue or suitable for a museusm setting, that re-interprets data in an artistic way to attract attention and interest of potentially interested passers-by

  • An interactive online text-based game that leads users through a set of data to evoke an emotional response and a call to action to do something about the issue

  • A collaboration with a community group to analyze their data and create a set of visuals that help them tell their story to funders and community in a new way

  • A comparative study of how people perceive and can operate on different presentations of data

  • A video designed for a targeted YouTube audience

  • A data story told through slides in a business or non-profit context - designed to convince upper management to act on a recommendation.

Data Sources

A constantly evolving list of data sources can be found on our resources page.

Inspiration for this asignment comes from Data Storytelling Studio: Climate Change