Virtual Courses Taught During COVID19 Pandemic

Edited by Corrie Monteverde

Professor Fernando De Sales teaches a virtual course on R for climate science (Photo Credit: Camila Abe)

The Connections between Water and Rural Production Team worked to develop live online courses that were taught completely virtually amid COVID19-related travel restrictions. Despite not being in person, Fernando De Sales, Trent Biggs, Andrew Bell, and Thais Santiago (with help from Jill Caviglia-Harris) led a multi-week training course for more than 20 students (image below shows students engaging with researchers from the CAP team).

Students participate in a live virtual classroom focused on hydrological analysis, led by Trent Biggs and Camila Abe (Photo Credit: Camila Abe)

The purpose of the courses is to enhance student engagement and skill in programming software, including R and ABM models. For example, students focused on hydrologic and climate analysis and were able to answer questions like, ‘were there trends in precipitation or low flow in Rondonia over the past 20-30 years?’. Visit this RPubs site to view an example of an R script used in this course.

The CAP team will likely continue virtual teaching in hopes that connections will grow and productive research outcomes will follow.

To learn more about R programming, visit Biggs Watershed Science Lab: https://biggslab.sdsu.edu/?page_id=67