6-12 OER Curriculum
Data Science Courses Open Educational Resources (OER)
Data science courses generally cover a combination of statistics, data science, and computer science principles, and are usually geared for 10-12 grade students who have completed Algebra 1/Math I with a preference for Geometry/Math II. The Data Science courses outlined on this page are rigorous, widely applicable, and often more accessible than similarly advanced math courses such as Calculus or AP Statistics.
According to Glassdoor, ‘data scientist’ is the number two best job in the US, and demand for data science skills continues to grow.
If you are interested in bringing data science to your school, start with DS4E's K-12 Data Science Implementation Models and Resources page, which outlines multiple ways you can bring data science to your students and includes more resources than are listed on this site.
See also, Data Science Resources List @ Data Science 4 Everyone - A large annotated list of data science resources categorized by grade level, category, and tool.
Youcubed HS Data Science Curriculum - Free through Stanford with a free account. Includes student materials with project and mindset-focused units. Standards correlation is available here. Units include slides, suggested pacing, student weekly reflections, technology resources (eg, for CODAP, Tableau, Google Sheets, etc), sample student work, handouts, and portfolio project outlines for student assessment. Youcubed has free training seminars and some office hours for professional development prior to and during instruction. Designed to be taught with web-based hardware (eg, Chromebooks). This is a fully developed curriculum, rigorous, project-based curriculum intended for High School students.
CourseKata HS Data Science Curricula - Free to pilot through UCLA with a free account. High School courses include "Statistics and Data Science 1", "Statistics and Data Science 2", and "Advanced Statistics and Data Science: A Modeling Approach". The courses are intended to be used through an LMS like Canvas or Blackboard. Other instructors have posted syllabi and assessments in a community center. CourseKata provides extensive professional development before the course begins. This is a fully developed, rigorous curriculum intended for High School students.
Introduction to Data Science Curriculum v_5.0 at UCLA - Free through an NSF grant and UCLA. Aligned nicely to current HS statistics and MP standards. Teacher supports exist, but no in-person training or PD is available. Can be taught with web-based hardware (eg, Chromebooks) by registering for paid online server capacity. Option for local hardware. This is a fully developed curriculum intended for High School students.
Bootstrap Data Science Materials - Lessons are available for data visualization, measures of center and spread, programming, linear regression, and more. Mix and match to create anything from a one-week intro to a full-year course! When students have completed our K-12 materials, there's a smooth pathway all the way to Data Science in Python via the free online Data-Centric Introduction to Computing textbook!
Instructional materials are intended for 7-12 grade students and include resource collections aligned to Algebra, Data Science, Physics, Computer-Science, and a new build-your-own course tool.
Find Data Sets, Databases, and Large Messy Spreadsheets
These data sets may or may not be vetted for use in schools.
Database Resources List @ Data Science 4 Everyone - A growing annotated list of databases that is a subset of the data science resources above. See the datasets specification guide cocreated by Bootstrap, DS4E, and CODE to read about what makes a quality data set for educational use.
Google Cloud Public Datasets - Includes a few hundred data sets including subjects such as crime, birth rates, digital tools, Covid-19, and many more.
Amazon Web Services Open Data Registry - Requires making a free account to access the data. Includes a large list of subjects, though many are medical in nature.
Data.gov - Includes data for the USA in areas such as climate, energy, agriculture, ecosystems, oceans, census, and so on. Some datasets require signing forms to access.
Earthdata - NASA's public access database site. Includes data that is mostly science and physics related.
Kaggle - A huge, open-source public data set host that includes everything from sports to cryptocurrency. Quality varies widely.
National Center for Environmental Information - NCEI includes climate and weather data from the USA.
FBI Crime Data Explorer - All sorts of crime data from FBI. A user guide site can help give context for accessing and understanding the data.
Datahub.io - Includes mostly business and finance data.
Global Health Observatory Data Repository - The UN's WHO health data site.
BFI film industry statistics - UK box office figures, home entertainment, movie costs, and so on. Fun data to play with!
New York City Taxi Trip Data - Includes data sets on trip distances, fares, payment types, passenger counts, distances, and so on.
Computer Science Courses Open Educational Resources (OER)
Code.org AP Computer Science Principles Free - An inquiry and project-based curriculum designed for beginners using the code.org platform online. Geared for 10-12 grade students who have completed Algebra 1/Math I with a preference for Geometry/Math II. Includes in-person workshops and materials, planning, teacher supports and PD, student support, printouts, assignments, assessments, videos, and more. Can be offered using web-based hardware (eg, Chromebooks). See also the free 6-10 course "Computer Science Discoveries."
Computational Mathematics Courses Outlines Free - Provides outlines for integrated computational mathematics tasks for classical high school courses (AGA, Pre-calc, AP stats) and an Algorithms course. Computational Mathematics promotes the standards for mathematical practice, builds a deep understanding of mathematical concepts, and develops skills that are widely useful in our modern world. Here is a video the author made that gives a tour of the content and ideology.
Math Curricula Open Educational Resources (OER)
Illustrative Mathematics (IM) - Free |K-5, 6-8, 9-12| - An inquiry curriculum with rich tasks, integrated support to teachers for research-based practices, and a high level of rigor. Lessons are based on the 5 Practices for Orchestrating Effective Mathematical Discussions framework. IM 6-8 is currently the oldest and most polished of the group, but other IM curricula continue to be revised and updated in 2022. While multiple publishers are happy to provide PD support and charge for text materials, the curriculum itself is an open educational resource. For example, Desmos has a paid, interactive version of IM curriculum and Geogebra has published free interactive tasks for each IM unit. Some teacher support materials are available. The Open-Up version for K-5 and 6-8 (free registration and verification required) online includes assessments, cooldowns, student practice, etc.
Open Up Resources (OUR) includes ELA and Math open educational resources for K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The K-5 and 6-8 materials use Illustrative Mathematics materials while high school materials use Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) materials. Open-up includes supports like warmups, assessments and quizzes, course guides, standards alignments, vocabulary charts, unit narratives, prerequisites, math language routines, sample family letters, and so on. Requires a free account to access materials.
Skew the Script - At a Title I school on the southside of San Antonio, an AP® Stats teacher threw out his curriculum and made lessons on topics his students actually cared about: voter power, food deserts, online dating, sports, and more. That year, more students at the school took and passed the AP® Exam than in the previous 16 years combined. The teacher created skewthescript.org (named after their class motto) and posted the lessons online for free. Within weeks, thousands of teachers across the country were using them. Now, Skew The Script is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers free, relevant math lessons for AP Statistics, Algebra I, and Algebra II (with more courses coming soon).
MathMontana SIMMS - An OER complete high school math curriculum with a STEM pathway and a non-STEM pathway. Includes units centered on real-world contexts with hands-on activities to help students grasp concepts first. For example, "What mathematical skills did the ancient Egyptians use to build the pyramids? In this module, you explore some of the theories regarding the construction of these architectural wonders -- and see how modern mathematical knowledge could have made part of the job much simpler." The teacher guides are full of notes for instruction, anticipated misconceptions and struggles, and samples anticipating what student work might look like. Here is a backup folder with their most recently updated materials in case the site goes down.
Finance Curriculum Open Educational Resources (OER)
Next Gen Personal Finance Financial Algebra Course and Activities - NGPF Math provides FREE curriculum and resources that weave real-world personal finance applications with rigorous math instruction tailored for a 9-10th grade level. Topics include percentages, equations, functions, linear equations and inequalities, systems of equations, exponents, logarithms, stats, probability, and spreadsheet logic including loan payments, budgeting, and investing.
Launch Years Resource Kit via Dana Center
In Launch Years: A New Vision for the Transition from High School to Postsecondary Mathematics, seven recommendations offer concrete strategies to establish policies, practices, and structures that enable students to transition seamlessly from high school to postsecondary and toward fulfilling careers and active participation in our data-driven society. The Launch Years Resource Kit website summarizes those seven recommendations with links to more resources.
The Dana Center has also published course frameworks for modern math courses:
Modern Algebra II Course Framework | Data Science Course Framework | Transition to College Mathematics Course Framework