Infographics: intersecting art and science
I really like infographics. They’re entertaining and informative. Why not have your students create them?
I teach science, biology to be precise. All of my students fall in to one of two [very] broad categories: artists or nerds. The artists are the students who would prefer to work with words or art supplies. The nerds are much more comfortable working with numbers.
In case you are wondering, I’m an artist.
It is very difficult to get a nerd to write a complete sentence. It is very difficult to get an artists to create an accurate data table and graph.
The cool thing about an infographic is that creating one requires artistic creativity and mathematical precision. Pairing up nerds and artists further communicates the importance of collaboration and teamwork.
Here are some of my favorite infographics:
And here is my own attempt at creating an infographic. The data is from the course evaluation that I gave at the end of the 2010 school year.
There are a lot of interesting conversations that can result when viewing and creating infographics:
- Can the data in an infographic be misleading?
- Is the design or the data more important?
- Is quantitative or qualitative data more important?
- How do you analyze qualitative data?
- How do you select a graph to appropriately display data?
Have you ever created infographics with your students? If so I would be delighted to hear about your experience and showcase their work!
7:56 pm
What did you use to create your infographic? I am interested in creating some but not sure what to use to create one. Thanks. Good information.
1:18 am
You can use any graphic design program to create an infographic. The example that I shared was created using PowerPoint. My students have used Google Docs Presentation as well.
Here is a post that suggests 10 tools to help you create infographics: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-tools-infographics/
Good luck!
John
4:26 am
That leading cause of death infographic is misleading. There have been fewer than 100 confirmed deaths worldwide from spider bite since spiders were first considered dangerous around 100 years ago. I have not heard of a single confimed human death from spider bite since 1980.
1:16 pm
@nanokiwi
Point well taken, hence my encouragement to use Infographics to start conversations about honesty in data reporting, statistical reliability, citation of sources, etc.
7:18 pm
do you know about the website Information is Beautiful? They’re all about infographics, and the power of the visual to impart information … here is the link: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
As a parent (with an art & science background, go figure) I would love for more teachers to try this with their students – so keep going!