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Location: Vancouver Independent School for Science and Technology (VISST)
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Date and Time: 📅 August 11-15, 2025 (Monday-Friday) | ⏰ 1:00-4:00 PM
A magical 5-day journey into the world of data science for young explorers aged 10-14
Welcome to an enchanting adventure where mathematics meets magic, and data tells stories! This summer camp introduces fundamental data science concepts through hands-on activities, storytelling, and creative projects using R programming.
** Sky (Kehan) Sheng** is a PhD candidate at UBC conducting interdisciplinary research in data science, AI bias, and animal welfare science. Sky is passionate about making data science and AI accessible and fun for young learners.
- Pavel Timofeev
- Ify Anene
- Sarah Eshafi
- 🎯 Learning through play: Toys, games, and creative projects make abstract concepts concrete
- 🤝 Peer collaboration: Pair programming and team challenges build friendships and skills
- 📚 Story-driven learning: Every concept is wrapped in magical, engaging narratives
- 📈 Incremental complexity: From simple variables to neural networks, step by step
- 🎨 Visual and hands-on: Physical activities combined with beautiful digital programming
| Day | Theme | Key Concepts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🏰 Basic Programming Magic | Variables, data types, if-else conditions |
| 2 | 🪄 Loops and Magic Libraries | For loops, packages, ggplot2, dataframes |
| 3 | 🎨 Data Storytelling | Data wrangling, advanced visualization |
| 4 | 🌲 Statistics Enchanted Forest | Mean, sampling, confidence intervals |
| 5 | 🧙♀️ Machine Learning & AI | KNN, AI, ethics & future |
- Set up Posit Cloud - Our magical coding environment (recommended!)
- Create Claude account - Your AI programming assistant
- Local R Setup - For offline adventures
- Laptop or tablet with internet connection
- Curiosity and creativity (most important!)
- Cloud computing account: Posit Cloud account (free)
- Optional: Claude account (free)
This workshop builds upon the excellent work of:
- Girls in Data Science workshop by Dr. Katie Burak, Jenny Lee, and Mona Zhu. Original materials available at https://github.com/katieburak/girls-in-DS
- Data Science: A First Introduction by Dr. Tiffany Timbers, Dr. Trevor Campbell, and Dr. Melissa Lee
- ModernDive by Dr. Chester Ismay and Dr. Albert Y. Kim
This project is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.