Thanks to a new grant-funded project at NAU, young people in Arizona could soon become more fluent in data science, boosting their future career prospects and bringing more prosperity to the Grand Canyon State.
NAU Department of Mathematics and Statistics faculty members Jeffrey Hovermill, Jaechoul Lee and Ye Chen received $1.1 million from the National Science Foundation to build the Arizona Data Science Corps (AZDSC), a joint effort between the university and the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). The AZDSC will create pathways that help sixth- to 12th-grade teachers and K-12 and undergraduate students gain fluency in gathering, organizing and analyzing data and communicating results—crucial skills for today’s students and tomorrow’s working Arizonans.
“No matter what field you’re in, you’ll probably spend some time using data to answer a question,” said Hovermill, an associate professor of mathematics and statistics education. “In order to do that, you have to know how to gather data, make sense of the data and communicate the findings in order to achieve some broader goal. We aim to prepare students to engage in these important 21st-century skills so they’re prepared for 21st-century careers.”
Data scientists are in ever-growing demand across Arizona and the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently more than 200,000 filled and vacant data science positions in the U.S., and data science job opportunities are projected to increase by 33% in the next decade. In Arizona, semiconductor manufacturers like Intel and TSMC, healthcare companies like Banner Health, insurance firms and financial advisers are among the employers that count on data scientists to advance their goals.
To meet that growing demand, the AZDSC will create three different pathways that will strengthen the data science skills of 200 middle and high school teachers throughout the state:
- An Introductory Data Science Pathway will offer 90 teachers outside the fields of math, statistics and computer science the opportunity to learn basic data science concepts and tools and find ways to apply what they learned in their classroom lessons.
- An Intermediate Data Science Pathway will dive deeper into data science concepts and lesson planning for 90 math, statistics and computer science teachers.
- Finally, an Advanced Data Science Pathway will bring 20 teachers and 30 NAU undergraduate students together to actively participate in research projects that apply data science tools and practices to solve local, regional and national real-world problems. Teachers and students might join in on Lee’s research, which uses data to investigate environmental changes, or Chen’s research, which uses data to forecast infectious disease trends, for example.
“Many teachers don’t have real-world data science experience,” said Lee, an associate professor of statistics. “By participating in this project, teachers can get real examples of how to use data to answer important questions. If a teacher has really good experience in data science, that will flow down to their students.”
Lee said that by training 200 teachers per year for the next three years, the AZDSC team has the opportunity to change the lives of up to 20,000 Arizona students, including those who are often overlooked because they live in rural and tribal communities.
But ultimately, Chen explained, the Data Science Corps won’t just reach those students—it’ll also help lay the groundwork for new state standards in data-science learning. While ADE currently mandates that schools develop a foundation of computer science and technology knowledge, there aren’t yet any data science standards in place. The AZDSC collaboration between NAU, ADE and practitioners across the state will support the adoption and approval of new data science education standards within the next three years.
“Researchers and educators see that data science has become more important in almost every aspect of our daily lives,” said Chen, an associate professor of mathematics. “Equipping students with data-science skills beginning in sixth grade will help them prepare for higher education and for careers in a wide variety of fields, both in and outside of STEM.”
Are you an Arizona teacher who’s interested in participating?
Hovermill said the research team will select Data Science Corps teachers in collaboration with schools and districts, so he encouraged interested teachers to reach out to their administrators. “We want to make sure the teachers we select have demonstrated that they’re committed to teaching for a long time,” he said. “We want folks who have been there, who have the respect of their colleagues and who are acting as leaders for other teachers in their district.”
Are you an NAU scholar using data science in your research?
Hovermill, Lee and Chen hope to show Arizona teachers how to apply data science to a wide variety of research topics. If you’re an NAU researcher using data science and you’re interested in working with K-12 teachers and undergraduate students on a project, reach out to the AZDSC research team at Jeffrey.Hovermill@nau.edu, Jaechoul.Lee@nau.edu and Ye.Chen@nau.edu.
Jill Kimball | NAU Communications
(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu
2025-09-03 17:50:00