Activity Overview
In this activity, students will experiment with tactics for assembling a variety of source material into a story outline. They will consider ways to strike a balance between data points and the lived experiences of individual stakeholders, and between local details and broader implications. The activity uses a recent article about the expansion of Amazon delivery hubs in residential areas as a case study and as a jumping off point to inspire students’ experimentation with data storytelling. The article appeared in 2022 in the Guardian, and it is titled “Are Amazon Delivery Hubs Making Neighborhoods Less Healthy and More Dangerous?” Plan to have students read it before the class day(s) in which you do this activity.
Step 1: Discuss and Imagine
Begin the discussion by reviewing for students the key points made in the article’s opening pages, which establish at the complexity and tension of the situation (i.e., Amazon’s expansion into Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood)
- Traditional warehouses vs. Amazon delivery hubs (operational differences)
- Difficult to quantify impacts on the Red Hook neighborhood (traditionally quiet, residential, but zoned to allow lots of warehouses)
- In response, and in order to make their case, the neighborhood group installed air quality monitors and traffic-counting sensors to quantify the impact of Amazon’s presence
Next, focus on the data visualization at the core of the article (which showcases the data gathered by the neighborhood group). After pausing to highlight some of the findings (e.g., 3,900 trucks passing through the streets on an average weekday), ask students to reflect on what it would be like live through these change, and to imagine how the introduction of a new Amazon delivery hub in their own neighborhood might alter their daily lives.
Step 2: Possible Sources and Possible Stories
Using the Guardian article as a jumping off point, ask students to consider how they might explore additional sources to tell an even more detailed story about Amazon’s presence in Red Hook. While the article does present a few anecdotes about how the delivery hub has affected local residents, it does not go into very much detail. Ask students to speculate about the kinds of research or reporting they might need to do in order to tell a more detailed version of this story.
Next, supply the students with a list of the following hypothetical source material they might find were they to do some substantial research:
- National statistics tracking the increase in Amazon delivery hubs from 2018-2024
- Interviews with local residents about how the Amazon hub has impacted their lives
- Instagram posts by outraged parents worried about their children’s health and safety
- Data visualizations showing the uptick in traffic and air pollution in Red Hook since Amazon’s arrival
- School newsletters announcing the change to a less convenient dropoff/pickup spot (in order to dodge the Amazon truck traffic on the road in front of the school)
- Government documents about the history of zoning policies in Red Hook
- Scholarly articles indicating the links between busy roads and childhood asthma
- Video footage showing Amazon-induced traffic jams around the neighborhood
Then, ask students to pair up and to outline a potential storyline that makes use of at least half of these sources. Urge them to think about which material might best hook readers who are unfamiliar with the situation. As they consider ways to connect the material into a narrative arc, tell them to try to strike a balance between data points and the lived experiences of individual stakeholders, and between local details and broader implications. Their goal should be to give readers a vivid sense of what it feels like “on the ground” in Red Hook, but to do so in a way that also stresses the general significance of this disconcerting trend (the reader’s neighborhood could be next).
Lastly, invite students to share their specific moments from their outline and, as a class, reflect on the affordances and constraints that each of these narrative choices seem to entail. Give special attention to the different ways that students choose to mobilize data in the service of their storylines.