Big Dayta is an international collaboration of students sharing what they do every hour for one typical weekday. That data is collected into a single spreadsheet that classrooms can then analyze. Over 900 students worldwide have shared their data to date.
What does a student do with 24 hours on a typical day? Do they sleep for 8 hours and go to school for 6 hours? How does this compare to their best friend, their entire class, or even more than 900 students around the world? With Big Dayta, students are able to make these comparisons and analyze data whether they are in first grade or about to graduate from high school. Developmentally appropriate (and Common Core aligned) ideas are provided for grades 1-12.
Students can be guided by whatever they find most interesting to investigate. Guiding research questions may include:

• How much homework do kids in my grade do?
• How does amount of homework differ between countries?
• Does the amount students sleep change as they get older?
• Where do kids spend the most time with their families?
• What are most kids in my grade doing at 4pm? Is this different from kids in other grades?
• And much, much more, based on whatever the kids want to find out!

All suggestions provided in the Idea Guide are Common Core aligned, so teachers can know that they are giving students a chance to satisfy their curiosity about other kids, while meeting the standards. “Humans are naturally curious about each other,” according to educational consultant Stephanie Ramsey, Ph.D., “So they do these calculations to get at the information, without thinking of it as a math problem. Math, reading, and writing all become tools to solve real-life questions.”
While the basic idea is simple, students keep track of what the do every hour on a typical weekday, the opportunities for application are enormous. Students can practice academic skills (analyzing data, stating claims and evidence, adding, subtracting, and more), and they can also connect with each other online to share their findings and debate what conclusions we can draw. The Big Dayta Facebook page gives students the chance to connect over their shared analysis.
The idea for Big Dayta came from inquisitive students. According to Seth Fleischauer, president of Banyan Global Learning, “Big Dayta started out of a fifth grade classroom in Taipei, Taiwan. Our students there were collaborating with another class in America and they wanted to know more about them. As a group, they came up with the idea with this survey. That was four years ago, and we’ve been slowly building it ever since. This year, BGL teachers pooled their resources and time to in an effort see if we could make a larger impact.”
Teachers can access a number of resources to support them in using Big Dayta in the classroom:

• A slideshow introducing Big Dayta to their students (Elementary, Junior High, and High School) and a slideshow with screenshots of how to work with the data using Google Sheets for iPad.
• Idea guide for choosing activities
• A longer explanation of each idea suggestion along with which Common Core standards that idea is aligned with (click here for ELA ideas and here for Math ideas)
• Big Dayta Facebook page so students and teachers can connect with each other to discuss and debate their findings.

Classrooms can use Big Dayta for one-off lessons as the school year winds down, or for longer units where students can investigate and report on the data across multiple subjects including math, writing, social studies, and more. However teachers choose to use it, Big Dayta is a chance for students to practice academic skills, critical thinking, and learn more about themselves and each other as they do it.

BigDayta will be hanging out at the Edsurge LA summit this weekend. We are looking forward to meeting some innovating tech-savy educators! You can join this project right away, but if you have any questions please email us at bigdayta@gmail.com. 

We just some data from South America. As more data rolls in, the more illuminating the results get. Get your class to join in and join the discussion.

The BigDayta project is about providing free, worldwide student data to classrooms everywhere. By exploring the data and collaborating with participants, your students can broaden their own worldview. As of today, students in Taiwan, Canada and the United States have participated in BigDayta. Collaborations have begun, and we will soon post a "unit guide" that you can use if you want to collaborate with other schools. If you want some ideas on how you could use BigDayta in your classroom, check out this idea guide.

Here is some early data from this project:

How many hours of sleep does a student get in Taiwan vs. Canada and the United States?

• Taiwan--7.82 hours
• United States--7.25 hours
• Canada--7.17

How many hours of video game playing do students spend in each country?

• Canada--1.67 hours
• Taiwan--0.45 hours
• United States--0.28 hours

Are you surprised about any of that data? Have your students write an opinion piece about it and we will publish it on our blog. Email us at bigdayta@gmail.com.

We are already getting so much feedback and interest from schools around the world. Over the coming weeks more lesson plans as well as collaboration guides will be posted. For now, we are adding a "pledge page" where you can indicate your desire to join us in this project. Submit your name, your school's name and a contact email here and have access to a list of teachers who are ready to collaborate. We will notify everyone on that list when there are any updates to this project.

The more you collaborate, the more you will get out of this project. Good luck, and gather that data!

The BigDayta Project is about to begin. Do you want to get involved? Would you like to add your own lesson plans or get in touch with other teachers who are doing this project? Email us at bigdayta@gmail.com . We can facilitate classroom collaborations, brainstorm lesson ideas and discuss ways to make this project go GLOBAL! We hope to share these resources with the world and connect classrooms in fun and interesting ways. Check back often to see new lesson ideas, and to see how our data is growing!

The more students who participate in this project, the more useful the data will be. We have tried to make this data as simple to complete as possible. If you are a 3rd grade teacher or a 10th grade social studies teacher, this project can examine some very interesting questions.

If you and your students are ready to participate, have them go to bigdayta.weebly.com and click on the center button.

If you want to collaborate with other classes from around the world, email us at bigdayta@gmail.com 
We will create a spreadsheet of class contact information so you can discuss your results with other classrooms. Your class can also submit blog posts that will show up here.

And finally, please share this with other teachers!