Vis4Schools: Fostering Visualization Literacy in Schools

Visualization transforms data into a visual form. As a user, this transformation needs to be transparent in order to be able to decode visual representations and correctly reason about the data. Even though humans are visual beings and visual representations are easier to understand than other forms of data representations, people still need to learn how to create, read, and comprehend them. Unlike reading and writing text, we usually do not learn how to construct, read, and interpret visualizations in the course of our school education. Hence, most users have difficulties working with novel visual representations or comprehending characteristics of underlying data. Our research projects explores how digital learning materials need to be designed and which pedagogical methods can be used to enhance visualization literacy (constructing and interpreting visualizations) in school education. We will focus on pupils in the age of 14-19 years. We will use declarative visualization grammars as basis for creating learning materials (semi- )automatically and will follow the user-centered design method by integrating the target group already in the design process. Our approach which integrates learning materials such as video+animation, educational games, and textual descriptions with graphics in the teaching process, is novel regarding the following aspects: 1) the described target group of pupils from the age of 14-19 years, 2) technically by utilizing declarative visualization technology, i.e., visualization grammars, 3) the resulting technical framework and guidelines for the design and integration of learning materials for data visualizations, which subsequently can be used by teachers, education institutions, and students in lectureships for their design of curricula.