Aurora Bartoli and Chiara Lorenza Remondino
Data visualisation translates complex information into visual form, supporting not only the reading and understanding of complexity but also the development of systemic thinking. Despite this potential, its presence in secondary education remains limited and problematic: the visual artefacts included in textbooks are often overlooked by learners, who tend to regard them as mere transpositions of the written text, frequently lacking graphicacy and data visualisation literacy, required to interpret them. This paper presents OLA, a training system designed to introduce data visualisation strategically as teaching material in high schools, with the aim of fostering systemic thinking across the curriculum and improve learning.
OLA was developed through the Systemic Innovation Design Methodology and integrated with co-design practices. Rather than intervening directly on textbooks, the project produces interdisciplinary, modular visualisations that complement them and can be constructed progressively in the classroom. The system is organised around two interconnected workshops: OLA DOCENTI, addressed to high school teachers in collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino, and OLA STUDENTI, addressed to design students, who create the visualisations on the basis of the themes identified by the teachers. In this way, the system is intended to deliver educational value at three levels: secondary school students, university students, and high school teachers.
Keywords: systemic learning, system thinking, data visualisation, graphicacy, learning design