Data Carpentry workshop at FLREC

On April 23rd–24th, we hosted a Data Carpentry workshop to teach basic programming and data management skills to people at FLREC and beyond.

The Carpentries (formerly Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry) is an international organization whose mission is to teach foundational computational, coding, and data science skills to researchers worldwide. The University of Florida is one of their sponsors, and local events are organized and coordinated by volunteer students, staff, and faculty part of the UF Carpentries Club. I attended their instructor training course this year, and just got my certification to teach. What best way to inaugurate my certificate than organizing and teaching a workshop right here at FLREC?

Data Carpentry workshop at FLREC

This event marked the first time a Carpentries workshop is offered off-main campus at the University of Florida. We are proud to have taken the initiative to bring these workshops to the RECs. The workshop was a joint effort from volunteer instructors based both locally and at other UF campuses. The MabLab had two people representing: me, as an organizer and instructor, and Rocio as an instructor. Zachary Brym from the Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead and Geraldine Klarenberg from the main campus in Gainesville both traveled to Davie to join us as instructors (thanks to the UF Carpentry Club for awarding the travel grant that made this possible!).

What is most exciting about this workshop is the variety of institutions that we were able to reach out to. Participants included people from different UF campuses (Fort Lauderdale REC, Tropical REC, West Florida REC, Everglades REC, Florida Medical Entomology Lab) as well as other universities (Florida International University and Nova Southeastern University) and federal agencies (USGS, USDA, USFWS), for a total of 26 participants.

We hope that this event marks the beginning of a continued effort to bring more of these workshops to the RECs, to improve the range of learning opportunities available to students based off-main campus. We are already considering the possiblity of offering another workshop at TREC in the near future. Stay tuned!

Simona.

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