OUTREACH

Developing data science tools for conservation

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A major barrier for conservation practitioners is to find and interact with the data collected by researchers. I developed an interactive web app that farmers, gardeners and conservation practitioners can use to explore plant-pollinator networks of British Columbia, and to figure out which plants to plant to enhance pollinator habitat you can see the app here       .

Research on teaching statistics and R programming

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We are recognizing the value of teaching statistics simultaneously with the programs that will provide plentiful opportunities to our students. However, programs such as R require basic levels of programming that most life science undergraduates do not have. Both statistics and programming are hard subjects that present a high intrinsic cognitive load. 

I used the framework for instructional design provided by cognitive load theory to design a series of homework assignments to teach R in statistics courses. I tested the effectiveness of these assignments using student grades and surveys [8]. 

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This research is supported by the Public Scholar Initiative at UBC and the CIRTL network. 

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You can find our event on engaging education for the public good here.

Teaching programming to undergraduate students in Colombia

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Thorough my training I have developed and taught courses in data science and statistics. I have now partnered with Ecodiversa Tropical, an non-profit organization devoted to the conservation of biodiversity in Colombia, to develop training modules on statistics and programming for undergraduate students.