Environmental Data Analysis EESC
BC 3017
Syllabus - Environmental Data Analysis - Fall '10
Multidisciplinary approaches to environmental
problem solving.
Acquisition and processing of environmental information focusing on
atmospheric
change and water resources. Analysis and interpretation of real- time
and
historical environmental data. Use of computers for analysis and
display,
assessment of spatial and temporal variability. Basic principles of
statistics and GIS. Use of MS Excel software with Statplus Addin and
ESRI ArcGIS software.
The course will focus on 3 data sets (= projects):
- Major ions in local precipitation & surface waters, in
particular the Hudson River
- Particulate matter and atmospheric ozone in NYC air
- Bathymetry and sediment distribution in the Hudson River off
Manhattan
You will gain experience with:
- tabular data
- various graphical representation of data
- histograms, boxplots, line graphs, maps, etc.
- simple statistical analysis
- standard error, confidence intervals, ttests, regression
analysis
- errors and noise
- analysis of spatial distributed data using GIS software
Software that will be used in this course:
- Webbrowser
- Excel
- Word
- StatPlus3.0
- ESRI ArcGIS
Instructors:
|
Martin Stute
Associate Professor (Barnard)
Phone: (845) 365-8704 / (212) 854 8110, internal:
95-8704 /
4-8110
E-mail (encouraged): martins@ldeo.columbia.edu
Office hours: Tu 4:10-6:00pm, Th 6:00-7:00pm,
PM, 404F
Altschul, Barnard College |
|
|
Mark Becker
Staff Associate, CIESIN
Phone: (845) 365-8980,
internal: 95-8980
E-mail:
mbecker@ciesin.columbia.edu |
website: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~martins/eda.html
In
order
to look at slides you may be required to type a password which
will be announced in class. Login: eda
Prerequisites: Calculus, one year college science, EESC 2100,
or permission of the instructor
Credits: 3 points
Hours: Tue, Thu from 1:10 to 3:00 pm in 18 Lehman
Format: Lecture, assigned readings, computer and paper
exercises
during class, problem sets, and laboratory reports (often requiring use
of a computer, WWW, MS Excel, Word). One day field trip during a weekend
Textbook, recommended: Berk K.N. and Carey, P. (2009) Data
Analysis with Microsoft
Excel™: Updated for Office 2007 (Paperback)
Brooks/Cole, Boson, MA 596pp. ISBN 0495391786
Homework:
Problem sets
Assigned readings
3 Lab reports
Assigned special activities
Grading:
Homework: 20%
Lab reports: 30%
Midterm exam: 20%
Final exam: 30%
Note: Late reports or homework will
only be accepted with a doctor's note or advance permission.
Students with disabilities who will be taken this course and may
need disability-related classroom accommodations are encouraged to make
an
appointment to see me as soon as possible. Disabled students who need
test or classroom accomodations must be registered in advance with the
Office of
Disability Services (ODS) in 105 Hewitt. Thank
you.
Schedule
Introduction
- basic Excel skills
- concept of course/examples of data sets, evaluation of background
of
the
students
- unit conversions, scientific notation
- back of the envelope calculations
Warm-up examples
- graphical presentation of
data
- e-mail, password, login, basics of Excel, warm-up examples: NYC
water
supply,
Ice volume/sea level
Proj #1: Major Ions in local precipitation and surface waters, in
particular the Hudson River
- major
ions in local precipitation and surface waters
- how
does an ion chromatograph work?
- standards
and error bars
- calibration curves
- how to write a lab report
Proj #2: Particulate matter and atmospheric ozone in
NYC air
- atmospheric chemistry of ozone
- basics in Excel, data entry
- atmospheric transport in NYC area, average, standard deviation,
median
- evaluation of ozone data of a particular day for everybody
- basic statistics (histogram, mean, SD), lab report format
- evaluation of extended ozone data set
- how to conduct an experiment
- particulate matter in air
- evaluation of particulate matter experiment
- advanced statistics: normal distributions, significance tests
(t-tests)
- statistical analysis of data, determination of fluxes, discussion
of p.m.
sources
Proj #3: Bathymetry and sediment distribution in the
Hudson River off Manhattan
- Overview of GIS systems and applications
- Coordinate systems and projections
- Spatial data formats and editing spatial data
- Working with attribute tables in a GIS
- Basic spatial analysis
- Making maps with ArcGIS
- Using GIS to analyze the Bathymetry and sediment distribution in
the Hudson River
- GIS on the Internet