Data storytelling is an increasingly important skill for students in high school since there are more projects and competitions requiring students to not only analyze data but also be able to communicate your insights with clarity and conviction. If you are a high school student looking to make your projects stand out (and don't forget, many high school projects are competing with each other's potential), being able to data story will help you change data into compelling stories that your audience wants to engage with, and values to take action or drive your message homes.
What Is Data Storytelling?
Data storytelling is the ability to merge data, visuals and narrative into a suite format of telling and understanding insights. Data storytelling is not just data visualization where the emphasis is on the charts and graphs, it means using data visualization and data together to show the welfare of the data in their historical context and the insights that the data can produce - one can move from data to a call to action or further understanding.
Why Is Data Storytelling Important for High School Projects?
Makes Data Understandable and Actionable, not everyone feels comfortable interpreting raw data for themselves. Data storytelling enables you to make your findings clear and understandable to classmates, professors, judges...etc. Influences and Connects Information, a concern with the story is that it is generally memorable. You can increase the relatability and impact of your project by drawing ties and connections between your data and the real world or your personal story. Demonstrates Critical and Analytic Thinking, data storytelling is a type of communication that illustrates that you can do more than just analyze the data. You can make sense of it and convey it - this is an important, transferable skill needed for the university and broader work context.
Steps to Use Data Storytelling in High School Projects
1. Define Your Core message
The first step is to determine what key insight (or question) your data should answer. What action do you want your audience to take, or what do you want them to remember when your viewers finish your project?
2. Collect and Analyze Data
Collect reliable data pertaining to your topic. Once you have the data, analyze it to discern any trends (patterns), or any unexpected results that carry weight in supporting your message.
3. Create a Story.
A story should have a clear beginning, middle and end structure:
Beginning: Frame the problem you want to address/question you want to ask.
Middle: Report the data and your analysis of this data.
End: Provide your conclusions and key insight, and implications.
4. Visualize Your Data
Determine what visuals (charts, graphs, infographics, etc.) will best convey the results of your research. Make sure that each visual is designed to correspond to your narrative and is easy to understand.
Consider free tools like Tableau or Google Sheets to create effective visualizations.
5. Make It Relevant
As you relate your work, think critically about how to illustrate the data with references to real-life examples, personal narrative, or current events that matter to your audience. This contextualizes your findings and will help them see the relevance in your research.
6. Edit for Clarity
Evaluate your story for clarity and flow. Remove jargon, abbreviations and make things as simple as they can be. Ask peers and teachers to evaluate your story so they can communicate whether your message is interpretable.
7. Practice the Presentation
If your work involves a presentation, practice telling your data story aloud. Practice timing, emphasis and transitions between visuals and your narrative.
Example:
Data Storytelling in Action Imagine you are studying social media usage and how it affects students' sleep. You might use data storytelling this way: Core Message: "Increased social media usage correlates with less sleep in high school students."
Data: Survey your classmates regarding their nightly screen time and hours of sleep they obtain.
Narrative: You might start with your personal experience about being up late at night on your phone. You would present the survey results using a bar graph. You would emphasize the trend shown and why that could be the case. Then, you would end with suggestions for healthier habits. Visuals: Bar chart showing average hours of sleep of students with high vs. low social media use.
Tips and Resources
Begin with a Question: Let your data collection and analysis be driven by curiosity.
Use Free Tools: The great thing about using tools like Tableau Public, Canva, and Google Sheets is that it is easy to create professional visualizations.
Look at Examples: You can find student projects or case studies online that might spark your story.
Collaborate: Work in small teams where you can brainstorm stories and review each other's stories for clarity.
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