Real-Time Data Lead to Real-Life Lessons

by Evelyn Beck

In Scott Simkins’s economics classes at North Carolina State University in Greensboro, N.C., students try to predict the future—but not for traditional economics subjects.

“Students aren’t predicting the price of pork bellies next week but rather who’s going to win the election or whether the Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates at its next meeting or what the box office receipts of The Matrix are going to be in its first four weeks of release,” says Simkins.

Using real-time data Web sites such as the Iowa Electronics Market, Simkins’s students make weekly virtual trades, then report on their reasons and the outcomes of their decisions. With movies, for example, students try to develop a statistical model to predict box office returns. Based on such factors as the appeal of pre-release trailers and the star power of the leading actors, as well as the overall economy, they decide which film contracts to buy.

“My students think they know something about movies,” says Simkins. “This gives them the opportunity to see if they do, and it forces them to think about what factors matter in this prediction.”

Real-time data—widely available on-line for subjects ranging from earthquake and hurricane activity to computer industry returns—offers instructors a dynamic source of information which changes frequently, sometimes hourly.

“The availability of real-time data makes it so much more real to the students,” says Kathy McCoy, who teaches math at Estrella Mountain Community College in Avondale, Ariz. “Instead of just showing them a graph in a book, we take them to real on-line data about our state.”

David Harbster, who teaches biology at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona agrees.

“Real-time data brings the science closer to the learners so they internalize the meaning of the data more effectively and connect it to other topics,” he says.

Harbster uses data related to El Nino, hurricanes, temperatures, ozone, ocean currents, and state streams and rivers. His students are regularly surprised by where the ozone is forming and moving to, for example, or how storms affect the flow of rivers. McCoy uses rainfall data to help elementary school teachers use the information to teach graphing.

At Georgia Perimeter College in Clarkston, Ga., geology instructor Pamela Gore sends her students on-
line to check world-wide volcano activity. Students select a volcano to
track, often picking based on some personal connection such as travel experience or relatives living near the site. Then they answer questions about the character of the eruption, the type of volcano and lava, the kinds of rocks forming from it, and how the volcano affects people living in the area—such as ash in the atmosphere clogging jet engines or lava flows forcing evacuation or even places where almost constant eruptions have caused people to simply adapt and go on about their lives. Students supplement their research with news reports, official government warnings, and information from volcano observatories and volcano-monitoring agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey.

“It’s amazing,” says Gore. “Every story is unique. Students get excited. It gives them a sense of ownership. They say, ‘That was my volcano.’”

Scott Simkins’s intent runs even deeper; he uses economic data to try to broaden opportunities.

“Historically, African-Americans have invested at a much lower rate in the stock market than whites,” he says. “They tended instead to invest in life insurance, real estate, and savings accounts. During the 1990s, when the stock market was good, this led to bigger wealth gaps. So this use of real-time data is one way to try to help provide financial literacy.”

And these activities reinforce lessons in the economics classroom, for in order to interpret the data they find on the Web, students must first understand such basic vocabulary as “bid” and “ask.”

“They learn how trading occurs, and it can have a very direct relationship to their personal lives,” says Simkins, who teaches at a historically black college.

As an instructor, the amount of information one finds on-line can be overwhelming.
“My biggest obstacle is simply dealing with so much information and then formatting it into a lesson,” says Harbster.

His approach is to have students make personal observations about the information they find and then to use reinforcing lab activities to provide context for the data. Calling himself a neophyte, Harbster says that he currently uses real-time data primarily as an optional assignment in a weather lab in environmental biology.

“I have no set curriculum, just a passionate desire to use it,” he says.

Kathy McCoy recommends having a back-up site in case the real-time data suddenly becomes static. For example, since her focus is on graphing, temperatures might not produce very dramatic highs and lows when the weather has turned cloudy.

Despite the challenges, instructors who’ve tried using real-time data find that student response is enthusiastic.

“It’s a way to grab a little piece of their busy lives in an interesting way,” says Scott Simpkins.