Engaging people with pollen data

May 11, 2023
WDG

Educational activities include use of the Neotoma Database

On Wednesday 11 May 2023 I was delighted to give a online seminar for the African Pollen Database group on integrating palaeoecological data into educational programs. Thanks to Sarah Ivory, Chris Kiahtipes, and Alejandra Domic for inviting me and organizing this series.

I covered topics including the motivation of students, designing a MSc level course, and setting up BSc/MSc research projects. My presentation was centered around my personal experience of running courses for BSc Biology and Future Plant Studies students (Palaeoecology), and for MSc Earth Science and Biological Science students (Environments Through Time) at the University of Amsterdam. It was nice to get a wider perspective from discussion with the audience and to pick up some additional ideas and advice. If you have other thoughts on this topic please feel free to comment on this post.

The entire African Pollen Database online seminar series is now available to watch via the associated YouTube channel. So to find more click here.

APD workshop : African pollen data and education

May 4, 2023
sji15

In addition to researchers, many of us are also educators!  William Gosling (this blog’s esteemed owner) will be leading a discussion of how to use the African Pollen Database (APD) for outreach and education! Please join us Wed, May 10 at 9am EDT (time zone converter). Please email sji15@psu.edu for the zoom link and instructions.

At this workshop, Will is going to focus on:

  • Why incorporating paleoecology in education is important.
  • Some theory about pedagogy related to paleoecology.
  • Discussion of specific ideas targeted at different groups (e.g. undergraduates, informal education).

Do you have exercises and modules that you have incorporated paleoecological data into?  If so, we’d love to hear some of your ideas as well!

For more information, check out the schedule below and see past workshops here.

apd_workshop_schedule_sp23_editDownload

APD Workshop: R-Ratepol

April 19, 2023
sji15

Ondrej Mottl and Suzette Flantua will be presenting an African Pollen Database (APD) practical tutorial about working with paleoecological data in R ! Please join us Wed, April 26 at 9am EDT (time zone converter). Please email sji15@psu.edu for the zoom link and instructions.

At this workshop, you will learn to use the new Ratepol package (info here and here):

  • search for APD sites from Neotoma in R
  • begin making age models
  • calculate rates of change for vegetation from pollen records

For more information, check out the schedule below and see past workshops here.

apd_workshop_schedule_sp23Download

APD workshop: neotoma2

March 29, 2023
sji15

Socorro Dominquez and Simon Goring will be presenting an African Pollen Database (APD) practical tutorial about working with paleoecological data in R ! Please join us Wed, April 5 at 10am EST. Please email sji15@psu.edu for the zoom link.

At this workshop, you will learn to:

  • search for APD sites and filter data from Neotoma in R
  • make simple pollen diagrams
  • do simple analysis like look at change in taxa across time

For more information, check out the schedule below and see past workshops here.

apd_workshop_schedule_sp23-3Download

APD Workshop: R basics for paleoecologists

February 17, 2023
sji15

Chris Kiahtipes will be presenting a, African Pollen Database (APD), practical tutorial about working with paleoecological data in R for beginners! Please join us Wed, February 22 at 9am EST. Please email chris.kaihtipes@gmail.com for the zoom link.

Also, if you are interested in joining, please follow the set-up guide below before the start of the workshop in order to make sure you are ready to go and follow along in real-time during the workshop!

apd_rbasicsDownload

Data workshops in R for paleoecologists

February 10, 2023
sji15

The African Pollen Database community is hosting a series of workshops including practical data tutorials and discussions to help paleoecologists working in Africa integrate these data into research and teaching.

Our theme for Spring 2023 is “using R to understand African paleoecology”, and the schedule is posted here.

Our first workshop will be February 22 at 9am EST. Chris Kiahtipes will be provided a guided tutorial that can be followed live to help you use R and RMarkdown to develop reproducible research workflows for pollen data. This will be ~1 hour. Please register in advance by emailing Chris (chris.kiahtipes@gmail.com) to receive the zoom link and a guide to setup your workspace ahead of the workshop.

To see our launch meeting from February 8 that includes a tour of the African Pollen Database on the Neotoma Paleoecology Database, watch this video.

APD Workshop series launch!!!

February 3, 2023
sji15

Interested in African paleoecology? Want to incorporate African pollen data into your research or teaching?

The African Pollen Database (APD) has been updated, and the Neotoma Paleoecology Database now contains over 200 APD records.   Many community members filled out a recent survey to help us format of our meetings in order to start focusing on helping people use APD data for research and teaching!

This Wednesday, February 8 at 9am EST, we will announce our finalized schedule for the next few months during a short meeting and provide a short (10 minute) walkthrough of the African Pollen Database on the Neotoma Paleoecology Database. Join us live for this short meeting at 9am EST time or check out the recording afterwards, which we will post here.

What: APD Workshop series launch meeting

When: February 8, 9am EST

Where: zoom, for link, email Sarah Ivory

Who: everyone interested in African paleoecology

APD Workshop Series: R, Databases, and You!

January 17, 2023
sji15

Interested in African paleoecology? Want to incorporate African pollen data into your research or teaching?

If you read nothing else, please take this survey before January 25!

The African Pollen Database (APD) has been relaunched, and the Neotoma Paleoecology Database now contains over 200 APD records.   Data stewards working with APD and Neotoma have been meeting regularly for the last two years to upload data, but we are now changing the format of our meetings in order to start focusing on helping people use APD data for research and teaching!

We are developing a schedule of practical tutorials on APD data workflows in R, using Rneotoma, and a few other topics to take place over next few months (see this video for general info).

This is open to anyone interested in African paleoecology (students, researchers, teachers, etc)!  If you or your students might be interested in taking part in one or all of these, please take this very brief survey by January 25 to let us know.  Also if you have other students or researchers you think should get this email, let Sarah Ivory (sji15@psu.edu) or Chris Kiahtipes (chris.kiahtipes@gmail.com) know.

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