Teachers’ data-based storytelling in a STEAM professional development programme

Increasingly, contemporary artists have turned to data as a source of inspiration, artistic medium and site for enquiry, experimentation and discourse in ways that have blurred, complicated and transcended disciplinary boundaries. Research suggests that when arts-based data visualization is integrated into K-12 curricula, these approaches can support students’ art learning and creative data literacies. Despite the burgeoning interest in literature surrounding the benefits of data visualization for K-12 students, less attention has been directed towards the ways in which teachers can be supported in designing and implementing data-visualization integrated curricula. This visual essay explores a science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM), arts-based data visualization professional development programme that was centred on socially and ecologically engaged storytelling in the Appalachian region of the United States. Throughout this programme, teachers told stories of relevance to themselves and their communities – a fundamental undertaking for teachers interested in empowering their students as data storytellers.