Spring, 3 credits
In this course, you will learn how to effectively explore, identify, and communicate key insights from environmental data to diverse audiences through visualization and presentation. Classes consist of short lectures on key principles of effective communication, data management, and visual design, coupled with discussions, peer critiques, and hands-on visualization activities. Throughout the term, we will introduce a variety of tools (including R, Tableau, Excel) and use these tools to develop and experimentally test alternative visualizations.
Co-taught with Dr. Jenn Marlon
Spring, 1 credit seminar
This course is intended to give students insights into the process of writing natural science manuscripts. The seminar will guide students through writing a paper, and end the semester with a submitted manuscript. We will also consider various strategies for writing, accountability, time management, and productivity. The course is aimed at students in the natural sciences with cleaned and analyzed data that they want to write up for publication.
Spring, 3 credits
Fifteen days, 15 students, four forests.
Students learn practical scientific skills of experimental design, execution and presentation, basic identification and taxonomy, and experience a number of different cultures and ecosystems, as well as interacting with world-class scientists.
The course is usually co-taught with Dr. Liza Comita and alternates between Panama and Ecuador.
Fall, 3 credits
Introduction to R covers basic to advanced programming and statistics in R. This has previously been taught in Ecuador, India, China, and now here …
The course provides an overview and introduction to the statistical software R for the analysis and graphical presentation of natural and social science data.
The science we do must be relevant to society, but to do this it must be communicated well. It is a sad fact that scientific illiteracy is common, but many of the world’s problems can be addressed by science and the scientific method. Within academia, this issue can be addressed by high quality training of science students, and I have written a number of resources (Queenborough 2011a,b,c 2012 Bulletin of the British Ecological Society) that discuss various skills such as writing and time management that are often not explicitly taught (these articles, along with a several by other members, will be published by the British Ecological Society as a Handbook).
I am also preparing a number of the case studies that I developed for submission to the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science as peer-reviewed case studies.