Activity: What is a database?
(no submission)Purpose:
- Map prior knowledge to the basic understanding of a database
- Make (more) friends, get to know others (and think about your course project team members)
Part 1:
You have ~5 minutes to complete the following tasks.- Team with your neighbors (you may team with as many neighbors as you want, but probably not more than 10)
- Get to know your team. Using the two-breath rule, introduce yourself, share your name, major(s), and the year you are in.
- Imagine Upsorn's 7-year-old niece visits our database class;
she asks,
"What is a database?"
Discuss in your team. Help Upsorn explain to her niece. In your own words, how would you describe a database to her niece? Be creative and have fun!
Part 2:
You have ~10 minutes to complete the following tasks.Consider the following picture or the stuff Upsorn brought to class
I will ask for a few volunteers to help me do the following with the stuff I brought.
- Suppose we want to find
a notebook that does not have any stickers on the cover.
Then, put a
sticker on the cover.
How should we find it?
Approximately, how long does it take to find it (seconds/minutes)?
- Put the notebook (from the previous step) back in the box.
- Think about how to make the stuff easy to find. Then, make the stuff easy to find.
- Now, find all notebook(s) with 1 or 2 stickers on the cover. How should we find them? Approximately, how long does it take to find them (seconds/minutes)?
- Can we map (or compare) the stuff, the way we make the stuff easy to find, and how we find the notebook(s) to a database, or how a database works? Explain how you map or compare, or how this activity may transition to the basic concepts of a database.
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