MOOC on Data Science for Environmental Modelling and Renewables
Environmental and climate change impact our lives, but there are questions about how observations, data and statistics help inform us about those changes? we developed an online course (hosted on the Futurelearn platform and funded by the DatLab), to help interested students from around the world examine and explore the use of statistics and data science in better understanding the environment we live in and the changes it is undergoing. The 6 week online course started by considering the nature of much environmental data (observed in time and space) continuing through to how data analytics and statistical models allowed us to explore, explain and predict the patterns we observe in those data.
One major area of new data (part of the digital environment revolution) is that being generated from Citizen Science projects and using social media, including Twitter. In the course, we were able to examine how Citizen Science and social media data can aid in the investigation of environmental phenomena, while also being aware of some of the challenges these data present.