Conciliating statistical and language literacy skills for the development of critical thinking and communication: Students stand up for the Brazilian biomes

Abstract

Brazil’s National Curriculum determines that statistics be taught from very early education. Some of the skills expected from 12-year-old students are (i) interpreting data from media, (ii) identifying graph elements, and (iii) writing texts based on statistical data. This paper describes a project from the National School of Statistical Sciences (Ence/IBGE) to this public. Students had to use statistical data to make a public claim. They experienced a simulated Conference of the Parties, focusing on the fires that devastated Brazilian biomes in 2024, and had to fight for aid funds. School teachers and students were deeply engaged, and students had an impressive performance as they experienced criticizing disinformation, curating quality sources, organizing data in bar graphs, and finally stood up for their chosen biomes using arguments and statistical data. Articulating both literacies showed that students experiment engagement and pride in presenting compelling arguments based on contextual knowledge and statistical data.