Are Volcanic Eruptions Increasing?: An Example of Teaching Data Wrangling and Visualization in Stat 2

Abstract

With the American Statistical Association Undergraduate Guidelines emphasizing the "increased importance of data science", I have begun teaching data wrangling and more data visualization in my second semester applied statistics course. In this poster, I will provide an example of how to incorporate these topics into a Stat 2 course using ggplot2, dplyr, and markdown in RStudio. The students work through a case study based on data from the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program, which keeps up-to-date information on the volcanoes of the world and their eruptions. In trying to answer questions about volcanism, such as, "Are volcanic eruptions increasing?", the students must utilize both computing and statistical reasoning skills and learn the importance of data wrangling and visualization in the data analysis process.

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