The fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) account for one in five American jobs and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that STEM jobs will grow to 9 million in the United States by 2022. Increasingly, an understanding and ability to work with data is core to the development of STEM skills. The workforce has a strong need for the next generation to have proficient data skills, not only for technical areas, but to support analysis and decision making in a wide range of business contexts.
Educators in the United States and other countries have recognized that open government data is a valuable resource for teaching data skills. The company Tuva Labs, for example, has used open data to develop K-12 programs in data literacy. Tuva Labs also has programs around the world to build data analytic capacity for sustainable development, including a demonstration project launched in partnership with the World Bank in Sudan.
Now some government agencies have begun working with teens with a dual purpose: to help teens learn data skills, and to have their help in improving and applying government datasets. The New Orleans Police Department recently took this approach when New Orleans joined the White House’s Police Data Initiative. The Department held a three-day summer camp with a local coding academy, giving young developers in training from low-opportunity neighborhoods an opportunity to analyze data on police activities.
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) partnered with The GovLab at New York University to develop a larger-scale project: a free, two-week Open Data STEAM (STEM plus agriculture) Summer Camp for middle and high school students. The camp, now held annually in Washington, DC, aims to help American teenagers learn more about data and how data science can improve innovation and security in the nation’s food supply. Long-term, USDA hopes the camp will inspire students to become future data scientists, data analysts, and farmers. The 2015 and 2016 camps were successful, but were only a beginning: They served about 35 students each year and the program has not yet secured long-term funding.
To scale this program sustainably, USDA should identify another federal agency, perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as a partner, to expand the open data summer camps. They should develop a plan for expansion by January 2018 and then deliver the joint camp during the summer of 2018. This would enable USDA to create both an “agriculture track” and a second track, broadening the program’s appeal to both participating students and potential funding partners. HHS would be a good first partner, as these agencies’ shared connection to the biological sciences enables synergies in content and complementary datasets, with overlapping interests in nutrition and public health.
USDA should evaluate the summer camp’s effectiveness, and then consider expanding the model across the federal government. By better understanding how the camps can best meet their objectives, such as increasing the student’s likelihood of selecting certain college majors, USDA will have firm ground to scale what works across the federal government and add additional cities for camp locations.
Open data camps will directly engage young Americans in open data and government—giving them first-hand experiences with career-advancing skills development. It will help the participating students to better understand the opportunities in open government data and provide a glimpse of working in agriculture, health, and the sciences. Additionally, summer camp students can help improve an agency’s own data. The 2015 USDA open data summer camp helped to reveal broken links in USDA’s data, which USDA could then fix. The summer camps provide an on-ramp to direct participation in the open government data ecosystem and benefit the sponsoring agencies by helping to improve and apply their data as well.