Empowering Social Studies Teachers to Use Data Effectively
Data literacy in social studies is a powerful, often underutilized way to help students engage critically with the world around them. While data skills are traditionally emphasized in STEM, social studies teachers are uniquely positioned to teach students how to interpret real-world issues through various data visualizations and claims from data…from the past and for current events as well.
Using data effectively in social studies means giving our teachers the tools and confidence to integrate data analysis into their existing lessons on history, civics, economics, geography, etc. With the right professional development and resources, social studies teachers can turn raw numbers into meaningful classroom conversations that build inquiry, empathy, and civic understanding.
Data Literacy in Social Studies: A Natural and Necessary Fit
Data literacy in social studies supports core instructional goals like critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning, and understanding cause and effect. These are key aspects of the C3 Standards for setting students up for success in the 21st century with a strong foundation in understanding of social studies. Additionally, data literacy and digital humanities are key aspects of ways that professional social scientists do their work, and thus important for teaching students about how to do social studies in the 21st century.
When students analyze population graphs, voting trends, income disparities, or global health statistics, they’re not just learning numbers—they’re learning how the world works. And using real-world data to explore these topics (and others) enables students to 1) dig deeper into the topics, 2) build key citizenry and workforce readiness skills, and 3) engage with the content in new ways.
Here’s why it matters:
- Civic Literacy: Interpreting election data (something that is shared annually throughout the United States) or campaign spending builds engaged citizens by helping to connect the dots between what can be an abstract concept, for students not yet old enough to vote, and their lived reality of their communities and the impacts of our elections in a democracy.
- Historical Thinking: Understanding timelines, change over time, and demographic shifts can be enhanced by reading and making sense of data. Rather than just providing this information in prose, datasets and data visualizations can broaden the aspects explored by students and assit with making connections.
- Media Literacy: Students must evaluate how data is presented (or misrepresented) in news and social media. Now more than any other time in our history, students have the incredible ability to access in real time information and claims about topics they care about (or are exposed to). Helping our students embrace critical thinking and data literacy when making sense of the claims and data visualizations they are presented with is imperative for setting them up for success in their own communications and accessing information.
- Equity & Justice: Exploring data through a critical lens helps students examine disparities and advocate for change. Data is collected by people and about people often for people to use and understand (even when AI or Machine Learning is doing many of the steps). This means we need to teach the human side of data, and how we can use data as a tool for good or harm. It is also important that these opportunities are available to ALL students. Not just those interested in STEM or those taking an advanced math course in high school.
Practical Ways Social Studies Teachers Can Integrate Data
You don’t need a math background to bring powerful data lessons into your classroom. With the right teacher professional development workshops and classroom-ready resources, social studies teachers can build fluency and ease.
Here are a few classroom-ready strategies that anyone can use tomorrow to get started:
1. Use Real-World Datasets
- U.S. Census Bureau
- Pew Research Center
- Our World in Data
- Local city or county databases
These sources offer rich opportunities to analyze migration patterns, voting trends, or community-level issues. Other options that we have found are more classroom friendly are listed here: Authentic & Relevant Data Repositories
2. Teach Students to Ask Questions
Before jumping into analysis of the data on the page or interpretation of what it might mean, prompt students to ask initial questions about the data like:
- Who created/collected these data?
- Why did they create/collect these data?
- What or who is missing from the dataset that may be relevant to our question?
- How might different people think about these data?
This positions students as investigators of the original dataset, not just passive consumers of the data.
3. Create Student-Led Graphing Projects
Let students collect their own data—survey classmates, track current events, or analyze historical case studies—and present their findings using appropriate graphs.
This combines graphing instruction, communication, and civic engagement in one meaningful activity.
What Are Social Studies Teachers Wanting to Teach Data Effectively?
- Exposure to tools and tasks to build confidence.
- Classroom-ready resources.
- Time to collaborate.
These are the three most common requests we hear from social studies teachers interested in integrating data into their current curriculum.
Through in-school teacher training, we support educators in:
- Identifying where graphing or data analysis fits into their existing units
- Learning how to scaffold instruction for data novices
- Using data to strengthen argument writing and source evaluation
- Building culturally responsive lessons around global and local issues
Why This Matters for Students
When students engage with data in social studies, they:
- Deepen their understanding of complex social studies issues,
- Strengthen critical thinking and source analysis skills,
- Learn to back up claims with evidence,
- Gain tools for active, informed participation in their communities.
These are core goals of social studies—and data literacy can be the bridge that connects our content to action while engaging and motivating students.
How In-School PD Makes the Difference
One of the biggest barriers we often hear to teaching data in social studies is lack of support for identifying where and how to use data in existing lessons. Most of us didn’t learn how to integrate graphing or data analysis into our instruction and previously many of our lessons did not integrate real-world data or data skills into the lesson plans. But that doesn’t mean they can’t :)
That’s why we offer tailored in-school teacher training sessions that:
- Meet educators at their current comfort level
- Provide adaptable lesson structures
- Include classroom-ready materials
- Build a shared vision across the department for how to integrate data into current social studies instruction
Whether your team is new to data instruction or ready to deepen their practice, our workshops support meaningful integration of data skills across the social studies curriculum, from civics and economics to history and geography topics and more!
