Using Infographics in the Science Classroom: Three Investigations in Which Students Present their Results in Infographics

A good infographic tells a story or presents a position. 2. The title of the infographic stands out and fits the contents and message. 3. The text can be read easily and contrasts with the background. 4. Images are clear, relevant, original or copyright free, and credited. 5. Fonts, shapes, and colors are consistent throughout. I have found that infographics (information graphics) successfully engage my students in science--not only in carrying out the research for classroom projects but also in presenting the results of their research to their peers. This article will help you integrate student-created infographics in your own classroom. Infographics incorporate art into the normally staid world of numerical information. Most newspapers, broadcasts, and news websites use these graphical representations to attract attention and present usable information. According to Visual.ly, an online community for sharing data visualizations, infographics * present complex quickly and clearly * integrate and graphics to reveal information, or trends * are easier to understand than alone * are beautiful and engaging (Visual.ly, Inc. 2011) I was first exposed to infographics in journalism through the Literacy through Journalism (SciJourn) project at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (Polman et al. 2012). Eventually I developed most of my environmental chemistry curriculum around the use and student creation of infographics. My students connect with info-graphics more deeply than they do with text or PowerPoint presentations. Creating infographics forces my students to decide what is essential and requires them to find evidence to support their point of view. Creating infographics also addresses multiple science standards (Figure 1). FIGURE 1 Addressing the standards. Developing science literacy through infographics fosters the practices listed in A Framework for K-12 Education (NRC 2012) and the Next Generation Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013). Science and engineering are ways of knowing that are represented and communicated by words, diagrams, charts, graphs, images, symbols, and mathematics (NRC 2012, p. 74). should be asked to use diagrams, maps, and other abstract models as tools that enable them to elaborate on their own ideas or findings and present them to others (NRC 2012, p. 58). Many of the crosscutting concepts presented by the Framework and NGSS directly apply to infographics, especially patterns, scale, proportions, and quantities, cause and effect, and and system models. By creating infographics, students also gain experience with scientific and engineering practices such as developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (NGSS Lead States, Volume 2, Appendix F, p.48). They analyze data, develop their own models to represent systems that they have studied as a part of their inquiry projects, and communicate this to classmates and others. Students creating infographics directly addresses the Common Core State Standard in English language arts for integration of knowledge and ideas. My students translate quantitative or technical expressed in in a text into visual form as they make their infographics and then translate expressed visually or mathematically into words as they present their infographics to their audience (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.7). I begin by showing examples of infographics on topical subjects. For example, I use an infographic on the presence of various elements in the human body (Hamilton 2013) as we study classifications of matter. I direct students to evaluate the con tent of this infographic with questions such as, Which element makes up most of the mass of the human body? …