Real Science, real data

Decipher My Data – Flu!

On September 15th 2010 Declan Fleming, a teacher we knew from a previous project, visited our office for lunch and a conversation about an idea he had. That idea grew into Decipher My Data and the report below evaluates the success we have had so far with the idea.

Decipher My Data – Flu 2011-12 – Evaluation

Teacher’s perspectives

  • Interesting things happening over on the X-Y scattergraph

    There seem to be some interesting things happening over on the X-Y scattergraph with a good correlation appearing in the school size graph. Whilst there seems to be little correlation occurring between any of the other variables and illness rates, there does seem to be a positive correlation with school size – it’s possible that…

  • Missing data from one of the most important weeks of the year

    Last flu season the project might have observed historic low levels of ‘flu but on the up side, I got a whole season free of illness. This time around it seems as if I’ve been ill with one thing or another since the start of December and I’m still trying to shake the remnants of…

  • Are there early patterns appearing?

    The first half term is down and things are slowly warming up. Already we’ve fallen into what appears to be a similar pattern of background illness levels to last year after very low illness levels at the start of the year. My classes have not yet got onto a microbes or disease topic so things…

  • Consent form sent in finally

    I’ve been so busy with all the usual business at the start of term I nearly forgot to return my consent form. The head was able to OK it on the spot. Now I just need to get it sent back and get our lovely absence officer to send me over the first month’s absence…

  • The learning curve with the ‘flu project

    Hi, I’m Declan. I’m a teacher who’s been involved with the ‘flu project from the start. I’m really interested in getting school students involved with current research and learning more about science from inside the process rather than just “How Science Works”. Last year was a massive learning curve for us as no-one has tried…

  • Impressions of XY Scatter graph Analysis

    I’ve just had an email from the DMD team to let me know that the XY scatter graphs are live and that I could have a play around and give my thoughts. The purpose of the XY scatter graphs is to investigate whether school absence due to flu is linked to the four variables. So the…

  • Impressions of Time Trend Analysis

    Hello! After writing about my first impressions of the project in the previous blog, I’ve now been asked to write about how I found starting to use the site. I’ve found the few last bits of data to get my school profile complete and I’ve started working with our absence administrator to get the data…

  • First Impressions

    Hello! I’m a teacher from the south of England and I’ll be taking part in Flu! I’ve been asked by the Decipher my Data! team to give my first impressions of the project. I’ve been told I have to post anonymously – it seems Dr Rob takes this side of the experiment very seriously! I…