Urban Critical Zone Data Jam 2025
We are offering...
- A traditional Data Jam competition, open to middle and high school students along the Urban CZ research area (the Eastern Fall Zone from Philadelphia, PA to Raleigh, NC).
- Supports for educators who wish to implement an Urban CZ Data Jam as an end-of term or unit project with their students (not as a part of the larger competition).
- Structured curriculum designed to support the use of Urban CZ datasets in your classroom.
Why a Critical Zone Data Jam?
The Critical Zone - Earth’s living skin, from the bottom of the groundwater to the top of the canopy - integrates geology, hydrology, ecology, atmospheric & social sciences. The Urban Critical Zone (UCZ) network of scientists studies the impacts of urban processes on water, soil and air across the Fall Line between the Piedmont uplands and the Coastal plain. Sites span from Philadelphia, PA in the north through Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC and on to Raleigh, NC in the south, representing a range of climates, age and density of development.
Through our Data Jam, we hope to empower students living in and around the Fall Zone to tell the stories found in the data collected by our UCZ scientists. We believe that the skills of understanding, interpreting, and presenting data are essential in a world where our ability to collect data outpaces our ability to make it understandable for a public audience.
Data Jammers will immerse themselves in authentic, local datasets collected by professional UCZ scientists and researchers. Whether students create a graphic, song, video, sculpture, computer game, puppet show, or children's book...their imagination is the limit!
The UCZ Data Jam was designed so that you (the educator/advisor) have the option to 1) enter your students in the regional UCZ Data Jam competition or 2) use the UCZ Data Jam as a self-contained project within your own classroom. Whichever adventure you choose, we hope you find the resources presented useful and informative as you guide your students on their data exploration adventures.
If you are interested in participating in the 2025 Urban Critical Zone Data Jam with your students, please complete this interest form, and we will follow up with you soon.
Have fun Data Jamming, and if you have questions along the way, we encourage you to reach out via email: hooda@caryinstitute.org.