Getting Started
A quick orientation for teachers new to Data Adventures.
What Data Adventures is
Data Adventures is a middle school curriculum that teaches data literacy through making. Instead of starting with spreadsheets, students start with what they care about — their names, their preferences, the games they play — and learn to see the data already inside.
The curriculum is organized into three Adventures, each spanning five lessons. Adventures can be taught in any order, but most teachers start with Avatar Maker since it introduces the Dataverse story.
Before the first lesson
- Choose your Adventure. If this is your first time teaching Data Adventures, start with Avatar Maker.
- Read the Adventure overview. Each Adventure has a unit page summarizing the arc across five lessons.
- Open Lesson 1 and review the prep checklist. Most lessons want about 20 minutes of teacher prep the night before.
- Print your materials. Each lesson lists what to print and how many copies.
- Gather any physical supplies — stencils, stickers, googly eyes, etc. The materials list distinguishes between consumables and one-time prep.
What’s on each lesson page
Every lesson page is laid out the same way so you can find what you need in the same place every time:
- At a Glance — section-by-section pacing for the class period.
- Prep — what to do the night before and 5 minutes before class.
- Slides — the lesson deck, embedded so you can preview it without leaving.
- Lesson flow — what happens in class, segment by segment.
- Materials — downloadable handouts and printable assets.
- Reflection — what to listen for at the end.
How to navigate
The sidebar groups lessons by Adventure. The hub home page links to the Adventures from a visual grid if you’d rather browse that way. Site-wide search is coming once we have a critical mass of content.