Data Science Across Disciplines

Six instructors—Alex Lyford (Mathematics and Statistics), Casey Schine (Biology), Joe Holler (Geography), Kathy Morse (History), Meaghan Winder (Mathematics and Statistics), and Markus Gerke (Sociology)—came together to team-teach sixty students spanning a variety of majors. This project-based is designed for students who are curious about how to use data to tackle research questions across the disciplines, but who might have limited coding experience (or none at all!).

In the morning sessions, students were introduced to the techniques of data science as they learned to graph, map, animate, and wrangle data using the programming language R. 

In the afternoon, students broke out into one of five separate sections to apply their new skills to a research project. 

Depending on which section they enrolled, students worked on one of five projects: mapping characteristics of the Southern Ocean, analyzing human experiences to natural disasters in the U.S., revealing connections between race, land, and agriculture in the 19th century, quantifying the spread of the invasive zebra muscles in U.S. waterways, and examining the relationships between sports fandom and attitudes about environmental sustainability.

Students each presented their final projects in the yearly Data Science Across Disciplines Symposium, held on January 29 and 30.