In this milestone, you will apply data science techniques to identify and define a sustainability problem supported by actionable insights from your dataset.
Effective problem-solving begins with data analysis to support your solution ideation. By dissecting complex datasets, you’ll uncover meaningful insights that reveal the scale, significance, and primary causes of sustainability issues. This milestone emphasizes analytical thinking—breaking down data into its components to uncover patterns, trends, and relationships that will guide your team in defining a clear and specific problem statement. The insights gained here will lay the foundation for solution ideation and development in later milestones. Ensure that you take the time to properly define your problem with relevant data to back-up your claims.
Understanding a problem through analysis is not just focused on numbers—it’s about deriving actionable insights and translating them into meaningful narratives that inform strategic decision-making. Through descriptive statistics and visualizations, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the dataset and contextualize your findings within broader sustainability goals.
Here’s how you should complete the milestone:
Step 1: Select your assigned dataset or download a relevant data source. Next, clean and organize the data by removing inconsistencies, handling missing values, and standardizing formats to ensure it is ready for analysis.
Step 2: Calculate key statistical measures, including the mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum for numerical variables. In addition, use box plots to explore percentiles and detect outliers. Evaluate the representativeness of the mean by assessing data variability.
Step 3: Create visual representations to uncover trends and patterns:
Scatter plots to identify correlations and clusters.
Line plots for time-series analysis.
Heatmaps to visualize relationships between variables.
Bar plots for categorical comparisons.
Step 4: Break down your data findings into clear insights, identifying any significant trends, correlations, or anomalies. Following that, contextualize these insights to determine their relevance to pressing sustainability challenges.
Step 5: Synthesize your findings into a concise and specific problem statement, supported by evidence from your analysis. This statement will serve as the foundation for developing a viable solution in the next phase.
📖 Additional Resources:
Engage with the
following resources to support you in your journey to developing a clear and concise problem statement, supported by evidence.
Task Evaluation
To self-assess on your way to the capstone
🎯 Competency: Analysis - Dissecting complex data to extract meaningful insights and solve problems
📦 Deliverable: Sustainability Problem Data Report
🌟 Deliverable Guidelines:
Clearly define the problem statement with supporting data analysis.
Include key statistical insights such as mean, standard deviation, and data range.
Illustrate visual representations, including scatter plots, line plots, box plots, and heatmaps, to highlight significant findings.
Include a summary of the market gap and potential users derived from your analysis.