Application of ecological knowledge and data science skills to conduct research using publicly available, open datasets. Students will gain experience with research techniques and tools that are applicable to a range of ecological sub-disciplines.
Athena Title
Applied Ecological Data Sci
Prerequisite
[(ECOL 3500 or ECOL 3505H) and ECOL 3500L] or [(FANR 3200W and FANR 3200L) and (ECOL 2550 or FANR 2010-2010L or STAT 2000 or STAT 2000E or STAT 2100H or BIOS 2010 or BIOS 2010E)] or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Understand the scientific process from experimental design to communication of your research findings
Organize and synthesize relevant peer-reviewed research using citation management software
Implement reproducible workflows and best practices for data organization, analysis, and visualization using relevant computational tools (R/RStudio, GitHub)
Apply team science best practices to effectively work as part of a research group
Effectively share your research findings with a scientific audience
Topical Outline
Collaboration and research ethics
• Understanding the science of team science
• Navigating the ethics of ecological research and statistical analysis
Developing scientific research questions
• Conceptualizing relevant and answerable questions
• Searching databases of peer-reviewed literature
• Organizing literature using a citation management software
• Finding open data to address your question and hypotheses
Data management best practices
• Implementing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles
• Reading and Writing Metadata
• Developing and implementing reproducible workflows (RStudio projects, R Markdown)
• Using version control (GitHub)
Data organization, analysis, and visualization using R/RStudio
• Importing, tidying, and organizing data (tidyverse)
• Visualizing data (ggplot2)
• Conducting statistical analyses
• Comparing expected and actual results to make inferences
Presenting ecological information
• Writing journal-style papers
• Conducting and responding to peer review
• Designing and presenting scientific posters
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
Leadership & Collaboration
The capacity to engage in the relational process of optimizing personal and collective strengths toward a common goal.
