From Wikipedia Tables to Public Data Visualizations

Authors

• Tanvir Prince, CUNY Hostos Community CollegeFollow

Document Type

Lesson Plan

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

This open educational resource presents a practical mathematics lesson in which students turn numerical data from Wikipedia into a clear data visualization. Students select a Wikipedia page with a data table but little or no visual representation. They examine the original source, date, units, definitions, and possible data limits. They then organize the data in Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet, choose an appropriate chart, and explain what the visualization helps readers understand. A complete worked example uses the 2017 population growth rates of South American countries.

The resource package includes an instructor lesson plan, a student project guide, a Wikimedia publishing guide, and an editable Excel workbook. The lesson can be completed in one or two class meetings or developed into a longer group project. It is especially useful in quantitative reasoning, statistics, calculus, and ordinary differential equations, but it can be adapted for other mathematics courses. After careful review, students may upload their charts to Wikimedia Commons and add them to Wikipedia. This public contribution is optional, but it gives students an opportunity to support open knowledge.  The full package is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

The four files in this collection are designed to work together, but you may also use or adapt each file separately. The 2017 South America population table is included as a worked example. Instructors and students should check the original source and investigate whether newer comparable data are available before reusing the example. Carefully review any contribution to Wikimedia Commons or Wikipedia for accuracy, accessibility, sourcing, and appropriate licensing before publishing.

Comments

This lesson plan was created as a part of the 2026 Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship, funded by the Cultivating Archives and Institutional Memory Project with the aim of integrating CUNY archival materials into classroom instruction and research. The Fellows served as teaching ambassadors for CUNY’sarchival collections, spreading interest among other faculty and their students. Through guided work with CUNY history primary sources, students will gain knowledge in the use of historical records in their scholarship.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.