How do you know?

It’s ironic that in an era of big data, truth sometimes seems more elusive than ever. To make better choices about how to manage our lives, our work, and our environment, we need to use the best possible information to guide us. But even with great data, humans don’t always make great choices- we misinterpret, we oversimplify, we fail to see fallacies in logic or flaws in the data itself- and even our most rational examinations of the numbers are fundamentally human, shaped by culture, prior experience, and our internal biases.In this podcast, we explore the process of how data becomes information, information becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes belief- and how, in turn, belief shapes the way we take and interpret data. From young learners to practicing scientists, the ways we incorporate information into our worldview is affected by our experiences. We combine social and data science perspectives with the study of how humans learn, in order to examine not just what we know, but how we know it.

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How do you know?

HDYK Episode 2: Mapes on maps

June 07, 2021 • Christie Bahlai • Season 1 • Episode 2

Map making is both an art and a science. In this episode, Christie, Rebecca and Bridget chat with Dr. Jennifer Mapes, community geographer at Kent State, and deeply patient person, game for trying things out with a gaggle of fledgling podcasters. Mapes specializes in making maps that a meaningful and motivating.

Want to learn more? Jen’s amazing map documenting the passage of time and nature from her neighborhood walks can be viewed here. The map of Akron looking at pharmacy access for communities of color can be viewed here. Finally, here’s a link to the Mapping May 4th project.

This podcast is produced with the generous support of the Mozilla Foundation and the National Science Foundation, and with input from community members from Mozilla, the Environmental Data Science Inclusion Network, and our colleagues and students at Kent State University. A special shout out to Kristen Dowling and Emily Loccisano from Ideabase for managing our digital presence and branding. Music featured in this episode is Get Suzie With The Corks by Origami Repetika and obtained from freemusicarchive.org under a CC-BY license.

Transcript available: here.