Project work

Exercise 10

Overview

The goal of the project is to work in small groups (maximum 4 people, or independently if you prefer) to:

1. collect/find and analyse a dataset that is of interest to you
2. learn something new in the process
3. to present your work in a report and presentation

You can either collect your own dataset or (re)analyse an existing dataset. Regardless of where you data comes from, your idea should be able to be completed (including data collection, analysis, full report writing and presentation preperation) within the the alloted time.

We have Angen booked for the whole week, but you can work wherever you want.

Data sources

Below is a non-exhaustive list of options to get some data to work with.

NoteCollecting your own data

• We have access to a large range of ecological equipment, including measuring tapes, quadrats, scales, microscopes, drying ovens, hand lenses, etc. Anything within reason that would be in a biology department that does not require specialised training to use we can probably get access to.
• In previous years student’s have performed quite impressive studies just around the ecology building, but you are welcome to go further afield if you like.
• There is also a small budget available to reimburse you for simple expenses (e.g. petrol, bus ticket, simple materials), but check with the teacher first.
• Please do not design a study that involves people, unless it is a very simple survey that collects no identifying information, and involves no manipulation.

NoteAnalysing existing data

• Sources of existing data might include:
  • Data associated with an academic publication, often listed in the publication and stored in data repositories.
  • Biodiversity data (species occurence records) from GBIF
  • From friends or family who may have data from a hobby or business you can analyse
  • From researchers at the university
  • From other courses
• We don’t need to publish your work anywhere, so as long as the data is licensed in a way that lets you download it that should be enough.
• If the data comes from a publication, it likely has already been analysed. Trying to replicate an analysis is a perfectly good project!
• Ethics still apply!

Project proposal

Once you have a project, write a short summary that includes:

• Data collection method (both for collecting your own and using existing data)
• Required equipment
• Rough idea on how you would analyse the data

Submit your plan by 14:00 on Friday 17th April via the assignment in Canvas. You should discuss your ideas with the teacher before submitting.

Analysing the data

No matter how you collect your data, you need to analyse it using methods we have covered in the course, such as:

• Exploratory data analysis (when working with a large dataset)
• Inference with confidence intervals
• Null hypothesis testing
• Regression modelling
• Or another method that you want to learn!

As always, your analysis should be done in an RMarkdown document that you will submit along side your report.

Learn something new!

Once you’ve proposed your project, the teacher will give you an additional element to include. This might be a new method, a new style of plot, a new way to work, etc. If you have something in mind that you want to focus on, you can also suggest that. When you come to present your work, 1 additional slide should be included to explain this new concept, so we can all learn about it.

Writing the report

Your final report must include:

• Abstract (summary of the entire paper, including results, 150 words max)
• Introduction (background information, hypotheses)
• Methods (including statistical methods)
• Results (report results, tables, figures, and save discussion for later)
• Discussion (discuss your results in light of the introduction, suggest future research avenues) - Citations of any references made in the main text (any style as long as it is consistent).

As long as it contains these elements, you can format the report however you wish. A rough guide length should be 2-3 pages of size 12 text, but the focus should be on the quality, not quantity. If you judge that your group needs more or less pages, I trust your judgement.

Please write your reports in English.

You should submit your reports by 15:00 on Thursday 23rd of April, so that the teacher and other groups can read your work before the presentation seminar.

Peer review

Each group will be assigned the report of 1-2 other groups that they should read in preperation for the presentation seminar. They will be in charge of leading the questions after the presention.

Presentation

Your final presentation should be no longer than 10 minutes. It should be engaging, and focus on communicating your results in an accessible way.

Not all group members have to speak, but you need to all contribute to the presentation. I would prefer that you present in English, but if you prefer Swedish then you are welcome to do so.