Data dives
Every chart throws something away.
Nineteen that show you what.
Put one on the screen. The chart is drawn from real data, the questions sit where they are asked, and each one runs twenty to thirty minutes.
Q1What it leaves outWhat kind of chart is this, and what can it not show you? The only question that gets harder each rung.Q2The findingWhat does this chart actually say? Read it aloud before anyone interprets it.Q3The turnWhere does this touch your own life, street or school?
20 dives · four rungs
01what’s there
read one · 5 dives
1.115 min2,508rows, all of them hereEvery value, and no shapeThe table is the plainest way to hold data, and it fails at a size you can feel.1.220 min65,952the quietest districtA ranking of places, a ranking of sizesThe same shape, handed two things that could not be more different.1.320 min78days unhealthy for sensitive groupsA number with no comparisonTwo stages, and the order is the lesson.1.425 min116,720the largest entryThe icon is a unit, and it breaksTwo ways a picture graph falls apart -- at the top of one file and the bottom of another.1.520 min46.5%bulky itemsTwo ways a donut failsSlices too close to rank, and one slice that swallows the rest.
no dive at this rung matches
02what’s reported
read one and name the gap · 5 dives
2.130 min15in the 1920sComplaints, and the catalogueTwo datasets that are not about what their names say.2.230 min1.4Staten IslandTwo instruments that are not independentThe obvious way to check a proxy, and why it does not work.2.320 min6,832MondayA pattern with a mechanism, and one withoutSimilar sizes. Completely different shapes.2.425-40 min95requests, Sat 24 SepThe day Los Angeles went quietThe hole and the spike are the same event, and neither of them is people.2.515 min67yearsThe smoothest line in scienceWhat a measurement looks like when almost nothing is wrong with it.
no dive at this rung matches
03what’s related
judge two · 6 dives
3.130 min+0.083degrees C per decade, whole recordThe window decides the answerOne series. One hundred and thirty-two honest answers.3.220 min7th of 12September's rankA mean is a deletionShown with something they already know was deleted.3.325 minr = 0.937A real correlation and a nonsense oneA hundredth of a point apart.3.420 min33.997 N-118.433 W -- WestchesterChange the bin, move the clusterNot one data point changes.3.520 min45.7%of California's land, held by its 29 least populous countiesA choropleth spends its ink on landAnd land does not breathe.3.630 min29.8%poorest teens bulliedOne measure is not a profileTwo adults describe the same students and disagree about who is struggling. Both of them are right about their own measure.
no dive at this rung matches
04what isn’t there
test a claim · 4 dives
4.125 min6of 58 counties have no monitorThese counties have clean airA claim to test. It fails.4.225 min+0.640Arctic, C per decadeEvery region is warmingTrue of the planet. False of a band containing an ocean.4.325 min9.1the mean yearEarthquakes are decliningStand in 2022 and it looks true.4.430 min1.66%are both low-mass and long-periodEarth-like planets are rareThe largest question a person can ask, answered by an instrument.
no dive at this rung matches