Pre-requisites

This course is designed for people who want to improve their knowledge of analytics and data-driven decision-making, with a focus on using data science to address climate change challenges.

Most of the content presented in the course will be on a basic level, but it will be helpful if you are at least a little bit familiar with basic data science and climate change concepts beforehand.

You might find this course useful regardless of whether you are currently studying data science or climate change or are planning to do so in the future. This course will likely be of special interest and use to those of you who:

• would like to build confidence using digital technology to tackle real challenges
• would like to understand the connection between data science and climate change
• are looking for ways to contribute to a better climate using their analytical skills
• want to improve their career prospects
• wish to discuss these highly relevant subjects with other learners.

The course will also be useful for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers as they can benefit from understanding the uncertainties and ambiguities inherent in data and use it to identify interventions, strategies, and solutions that realize benefits for humanity and the environment.

Three things to prepare

In this course, you will learn how to use data science to support data-driven decision-making for climate change. Later in the course, you will apply data science techniques to address climate change problems.

Accordingly, you are required to have the following three things ready for later use:

Dataset: There are plenty of datasets available for download and use. In the relevant steps we will list several data sources, including the ones specific to climate change. These might be helpful during the course.

Analytics tool: The tool we recommend is Orange. Orange is an open-source and multiplatform tool (runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux) that helps non-technical users to analyze data as it hides the complexity and facilitates a no-code platform to conduct advanced analytics.

To download and install Orange, click on this link: https://orangedatamining.com/download/. Please note that we are not directly associated with Orange and downloading and using the program is on your own risk. If you do not wish to use this program there are many other alternatives you may seek out and use.

Problem: Finally, you will also need a relevant problem that needs a data-driven decision to address or solve. Try to think of a problem related to climate change that might be solved using data science. If you can’t think of one now, the coming activities may give you some inspiration.