USC team earns top honors at Data Jam
A team of Upper St. Clair High School students took top honors in the 2017 Pittsburgh Data Jam competition on Feb. 23, 2017, at the University of Pittsburgh. Team members include Aditi Chattopadhyay, Mahima Reddy, Yash Lahoti, Kriti Shah and Brooke Christiansen.
Upper St. Clair finished first among a field of more than 25 teams. USC team members were honored with a trophy and each will receive a FitBit.
Students were tasked with formulating a question that could be answered using public data. They tackled the question, “Does insomnia correlate to income at a national/local level?”
“Interestingly, they found opposite trends at the national vs. local level,” Lynn Kistler, high school science teacher and science department curriculum leader, said. “The program is very challenging, requiring students to develop a question, collect the appropriate data and analyze the results.”
According to its website, the goal of the Pittsburgh Data Jam is to “introduce Pittsburgh high school students to big data and data analytics. It raises the students’ awareness of the impact that big data will have on their lives as individuals and the new career options that are being created by the advent of big data in nearly every industry imaginable.” This year marks the third year for the analytics competition.
The Data Jam competition is organized by Pittsburgh Dataworks, a non-profit organization formed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and leading local and global firms to establish Pittsburgh as a leader in the dynamic and growing field of big data.
