Final Group Presentation

For your final, as a group, you will present the following:

• The study area that you selected for your project. Be sure to include a map and context map that clearly shows where the study area is. Create your map using R.
• The science topic that you selected for your project.
• Why the topic, event or phenomenon is important (why should the class care). This should include some background that you develop via a literature review. Have other people studied it? What did they find?
• Plots showing at least 2 different types of data from different sources that allow you to answer questions about the topic.
• Explanation of where you got the data (the source).
• Explanation of how you processed the data in R.
• Results that you found by looking at the data.
• Challenges that you faced in working with the data.
• Any relevant conclusions.

This is a science presentation so be sure to clearly articulate the significance of your project.

Important:

• You have exactly 10 minutes to present your project to the class.
• Each member in each group needs to present!
• You can use any presentation tool that you wish for your presentation (powerpoint, rpres, pdf, etc.), as long as the entire class can see the final presentation and you can submit it to D2L for grading.
• Groups should be 2-3 people. It is OK if you decide you really want to work on your own but I prefer (and you will have a better project) if you work with others.
• You can reach out to the the experts who have presented in this course for guidance if you want!
  • Matthew Rossi (floods - Earth Lab)
  • Megan Cattau (fire - Earth Lab)
  • Lise (social media - Earth Lab)

Individual Final Report

To complement your final presentation, create a report using R markdown. This report should be structured as a scientific paper or white paper. For your report, select a component of the project that you are most interested in. Perform a literature review on that topic. In your report be sure to cite in your text at least 2 peer reviewed journal articles about that topic and then 2 other sources (peer reviewed or not peer reviewed) including blogs, newspaper articles, etc. Also be sure to include data driven plots and maps as appropriate. Your report should include:

1. An Introduction that includes a map of the study area created in R.
2. Literature review that references to at least 2 scientific (peer reviewed) papers and 2 other sources on the topic.
3. A Methods overview that describes
   • The data that you used
   • The source of the data
   • How the data were processed in R.
4. Results - at least 4 maps and/or plots that answer the question that you decided to address or the phenomenon that you decided to explore using data.
5. Summary text - what did you learn about your topic? What did the data tell you?
6. References - list all references that you used to write your report (in text citations) at the end. Don’t forget to reference your data.

The report should be written independently, however it is ok if you decide to share code with your group members given you may all tackle different parts of the data when you work on your project. It is also ok if you share interesting articles and other sources of information about the topic.

The writing of each report needs to be your own.

The report should also include the code that you used to create maps and process any data used. You can hide this code using code chunk arguments but be sure to clearly document your process as you have been learning in class all semester! We will grade your final pdf / html document and the code.

Report Notes

• Be sure all plots and maps have clearly labeled x and y axes (as appropriate) and legends.
• All plots / maps should also include a caption that describes what the data show. You can add the caption using fig.cap = OR if you prefer, add the caption in the markdown text of your document.
• Spell and grammar check your paper BEFORE YOU SUBMIT. This is worth 20% of your grade. Take time to make sure it’s well written!
• Hide your code in the .Rmd document UNLESS you feel like your methods are important to call out (for example you may decide to show some of your methods in the methods section of the report).
• Turn off warnings and other messages so they do not appear in your final rendered report.
• Do not include any code in your submission that is not crucial to creating the output plots and analysis.
• Makre sure that the .Rmd (or .ipynb) file runs (we can hit knit in Rstudio and everything will work).
• Start early - make sure your reports renders to pdf or html WELL BEFORE the assignment is due!
• Proof your output .html file BEFORE your submit it.

Graduate Students - Additional Report Elements

In addition to the requirement above, graduate students should include:

1. A more robust literature review on the selected topic. This literature review should include 4 or more peer reviewed references and should be 1.5 to 2 pages in length (~700 words).
2. An abstract that provides the big picture of the topic that you selected. This abstract should follow the format of an abstract that your would write for a journal submission in your field.

Submission

• GROUP PRESENTATION: The final group presentations will occur on the final day of class. Submit your final presentation to the group D2L Drop Box by 9AM on the class day that you present. )

• FINAL INDEPENDENT REPORT: The final individual report is due on Monday of finals week. Submit your html / pdf file and your .Rmd file to D2L by Monday 18 Dec 2017 @ 9AM.

• DATA: Please submit your data to D2L as a group to D2L by Monday 18 Dec 2017 @ 9AM. If you are using a specific dataset that you are not able to share, OR a data set that is particularly large, please shoot us a note and we will figure out an alternative! If the data are large, submitting an intermediate output that is smaller and will allow us to run your analysis is an option.

Presentation Rubric

Science (50%)

Data (25%)

Presentation (20%)

Slide Presentation (5%)

Final Report Rubric

Report Structure & Text Writeup: 10%

Report Code Structure & Format: 10%

Report Plots & Data Content: 20%

Report Science Content: 60%

Graduate Student Additional Report Components

Graduate students: The science content portion of your paper will be worth 45% rather than 60% with the additional 15% coming from the section below which includes the additional literature review and the abstract.

Graduate Students - Abstract & Additional Literature Review: 15%