This document describes five mini fieldwork investigations about everyday life that can be conducted from home based on the Dear Data project. Each investigation provides a question, method, and example of how the data could be collected and analyzed over one week. The investigations examine mobility, attitudes, variations in quality of life, identity, and connections to different places. Conducting these investigations allows students to explore topics like transport, perspectives on issues, life experiences, and global awareness through collecting small amounts of personal data.

1. Fieldwork in your pocket: five mini fieldwork investigations about the everyday
Claire Kyndt, King's Ely

2. Pitch deck title
At home
In transition
Conference session
Other

3. 20XX Pitch deck title 3

4. 🌍 Geographer
👶 Mama
👩‍🏫 Teacher
🌻 Lover of ‘in the field’ ramblings and explorations

5. The Background

6. The Dear Data Project
• A year-long, analog data drawing project by
Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec.
• Living on different sides of the Atlantic (UK
and USA).
• Each week, and for a year, they collected and
measured a particular type of data about their
lives, used this data to make a drawing on a
postcard-sized sheet of paper, and then sent
their postcard to each other.

7. 1. A theme
2. Smaller categories
3. Gather the data for a week
5. Spend time looking at the data to
look for patterns, sequences etc
4. Organise the
data

8. Pitch deck title

9. Explorations…

10. Wish list
Micro – in scale
Everyday – so that all students could access and complete.
Shareable – to broaden and enrich the data.
Simple - Easy designs that gives the students the targeted
information they need.
Rich – had to include at least 2 data collection elements.

11. #Mobility

12. BQ: What factors affect a place's ability to adopt greener transport?
SQ: What are the different ways I travel and why?
Method
MOBILITY
1) What is my journey?
2) How will I journey?
3) How far is my journey?
4) What is the purpose of my journey?
5) What does this say about myself?
1. Lines = a journey is made. Lines are drawn within the type
of transport taken for the journey.
In line with a pressing need to change our reliance on fossil fuels, this investigation brings
this down to the role we may play in adopting greener ways into our everyday. How can I
adopt greener transport? What type of journeys do I make and what type of transport am
I using for these journeys? Can this be changed and what would this mean for my
personal carbon footprint?
3. Line colour = purpose of my journey.
2. Line length = the distance I will travel.
1km
2km
3 km
4+km
Shops
Date data is collected =

13. The main story is
Reflections

14. How this investigation
could be used?
• Categorical data combined
with time/distance/strength
of opinion scale.
• Questions that consider social
(im)mobility.

15. #Attitudes

16. BQ: Can rural areas adopt micro-mobility?
SQ: What are the different attitudes towards e-scooters?
People’s views and opinions can affect local decision making. There forums for expressing these
views is more accessible than the past with the increase in social media platforms. Using a
local issue/event, what are the different attitudes towards this and how does this change
over time?
Method
1. What is the attitude? The lower part of the circle is filled with a symbol
2. How strong is the attitude? Add 1, 2, or 3 lines in the centre for the perceived
3. Reason for viewpoint = colour
ATTITUDES
1) How do attitudes to e-scooters differ over a week?
2) What are the different attitudes towards the e-
scooters?
3) How strong is the viewpoint?
4) What are the reasons for this viewpoint?
5) What does this say about the need for e-scooters in
the village?
In favour Not in favour
Too expensive

17. M T W T F S S
The main story is
Reflections

18. How this investigation
could be used?
• Social media/textual analysis.
• Any issue what has a wide range
of views – new housing
development, regeneration,
changes to land use.

19. #Variations

20. BQ: To what extent does quality of life vary between
places?
SQ: The story of two streets – how does quality of life vary?
Method
1. Each symbol = one event
2. Colour = what the event is about
3. The symbol’s pattern = strength
of impact.
VARIATIONS
1) What events improve my quality of life?
2) What events make my quality of life poorer?
3) Just how better/worse?
4) What does this say about living on my street?
Quality of life comparisons are often made between cities, towns, areas, wards…all relatively
large scale when it comes to the everyday. How does wellbeing and standard of living differ on
a much smaller scale….between two streets in the same place? Over the next week, record
events that have either a negative or positive impact on your quality of life.
Location of street =
Date data is collected =
Any other comments =
meh
Strongly impacted
Very strongly impacted

21. Events that improve my quality of life Events that make my quality of life poorer
The main story is
Reflections

22. How this investigation
could be used?
• Comparative studies.
• Insider vs outsider perspectives
• Generational differences
• Gender comparisons
• Minority groups
• Newly arrived migrant groups

23. #Identity

24. BQ: How and why do people’s experience of places differ?
SQ: My Cambridge – why do I leave my house?
Method
1. Each line = why I leave my house = a place visited
2. Colour = where the place is
3. The time = when I went to this place
IDENTITY
1) What are my experiences of my place?
2) Why do I leave my house?
3) Which places do I go to?
4) When do I go to these places?
5) How do I feel in these places?
6) What does this tell me about how I view my
place?
Different people view places in different ways. Our level of experience of a place changes our
perspective of it. The events that happen to us in a place could also influence our opinion of it, a good
event will evoke happy memories, a bad experience could result in people not liking a place. Demographic
factors could also come into play; Will women view places in the same way as men? Do the elderly view
places in the same way as the young? Do ethnic or religious groups view places in the same way?
What of people of different sexual orientation? Record every time you leave the house in a week.
Where do you go, what time did you go and what was you experience like?
4. Dashes = number = emotions felt.
Happy
Scared
Date data is collected =

25. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
Friday Saturday Sunday
The main story is
Reflections

26. How this investigation
could be used?
• Crime/safety studies.
• Decision making around urban
planning.
• Perception analysis.

27. #Connections

28. BQ: How do my global connections differ to others?
With the global pandemic changing our relationships with place, understanding our connections
have become more important than ever. Has my geography and awareness of the world
increased or declined? Is the way I connect to ‘other’ diversifying or diminishing? How many
connections to other places do I make over one week? Which places do I connect to and why
am I connecting to that place? Finally, how am I connecting to this place and what does this
tell me about myself?
Method
1. Each place is represented by a shape
UK
Europe
Africa
S. America
N. America
Asia
Australasia
Antarctica
2. Reason = represented by a colour
A purchase
Friends/family
Interests/hobbies
Food
News/information
3. How I connect = symbol
* phone
-
.
/
,
!
CONNECTIONS
1) How many connections do I make in a day?
2) Where do I connect to (by place)?
3) What is the reasons I connect to this place?
4) How do I connect to this place?
5) What does this say about myself?
Date data is collected =
Any other comments =
SQ: How many place connections have I made in 1 week?

29. UK
Europe
Africa
S. America
N. America
Asia
Australasia
Antarctica
v
The main story is Reflections
c c c c c c c c c c c c c c

30. How this investigation
could be used?
• Scale down further – food connections, human
connections, services, information etc
• How connections change over time – what are the
factors?
• Comparing connections between places.

31. Reflections
• Could the Dear Data project/these fieldwork investigations have a place in your
curriculum?
• How might you use them? When? Where?
• Are there other micro investigations you could create?

32. Data pen pals
https://groups.google.com/g/drawingyourdata

33. https://groups.google.com/g/teachingdeardata

34. Pitch deck title
At home
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35. Thank you