Competition Background

Baltimore is the focus of exciting and groundbreaking research on cities. For the past 22 years, scientists with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) have been studying the city and its surroundings as a socio-ecological system, or ecosystem. This pioneering research encompasses nearly every aspect of the city – its people, its soils, plants, animals and microbes, its history, institutions, economy and neighborhoods and its waters, airs and even the ground beneath our feet.

The wealth of data about this region is tremendous. In fact, many urban scientists consider Baltimore the most intensively studied city in the world! We now are working harder than ever to find new, creative ways to summarize and present these data to non-scientist audiences.

The Baltimore Data Jam Competition has been designed to let teachers and their students, and now entire families use creativity and skills to find interesting ways to present some of these data and other results in a friendly, educational and competitive atmosphere.

Projects will be judged on two submissions: 1) a written report; and 2) a creative and unique project (physical model, skit, song, visual representation, etc.). Judging criteria include a review of the report and its components, accuracy of data trends and comparisons, and overall creativity. As you will see, the Baltimore Data Jam emphasizes creativity in presenting data. These are the very skills that are and will continue to be necessary as our ability to collect data outpaces our ability to make it understandable to the general public.