STATISTICS FOR LIFE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Catalog description

The course will train life and environmental science students in 1) searching and accessing public data repositories to address questions in the area of life and environmental science, 2) carrying out quality control of data files and preparing data files for statistical analysis, 3) summarizing data with tables and graphs for reports using the principles of descriptive statistics, and 4) applying basic principles of inferential statistics to test simple life and environmental science models. The students will also practice 1) using spreadsheet software (e.g., Excel) for basic data organization, clean-up, and manipulation and 2) carrying out basic descriptive and inferential statistics with R (the standard statistical software used in life and environmental science). In addition to using the frequentist approach (null hypothesis testing) for inferential statistics, the course will also emphasize effect sizes, because statistically significant, yet small effects, are generally of minor importance in biological and environmental systems. (Cross-listed with BIOL 2020 ).