Python for Social Scientists

A) Greeting and Orientation - 15 min

• Survey of programming levels in the audience.
• Survey of educational/research experience.

• Confirm installation pre-requisistes:

  • python 2.7 or higher
  • MatPlotLib
  • A text editor

• Break into pairs to be partners during the workshop. This to help keep from getting behind due to small questions.

Time Total: 0:15

B) Group Work: Import World Bank Data - 45 min

• We will write a method to pull in CSV data from the World Bank Indicators page.
• We'll be using "Ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education" (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ENR.PRSC.FM.ZS).
• Output data to the console (ie a Python dict)

Time Total: 1:00

C) Group Work: Graph the Data, Time Series - 45 min

• As a group, we will find and read through pre-existing code to borrow from, specifically this one of a bar series with two sets of data, "Men" and "Women" (http://matplotlib.org/examples/api/barchart_demo.html). Then we'll alter it to meet our needs and create 2 different charts:

  • Display "Ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education" across years, grouped by country for 2-4 chosen countries

  • 2 axes: One axis will display ratio of girls to boys in primary education" across countries over time. The other will display another indicator from the World Bank library.

  • Share the pattern you found with the rest of your table.

Time Total: 1:45

D) On Your Own: Answer Your Own Question - 45:00

• With your partner, pick another data set you find interesting. Pose a question that can be answered with that data.

• Don't have to limit it to World Bank data set; any that outputs to .csv or .xls can work. Some resources:

  • SF city data: https://data.sfgov.org/
  • DC city data: http://data.dc.gov/
  • Daily Treaasury Statements from 1998 to 2013: https://fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/DTSFilesArchiveAction.do (TODO crawl websites and convert .txt to .csv if have time or see if results are in the github for https://github.com/csvsoundsystem/fms-treasury-statements-analysis)
  • US Dept of Education: http://www.ed.gov/developer (NOTE many currently unavailable due to shutdown)
  • US Dept of Defense open data sets http://open.defense.gov/Data.aspx (NOTE currently not available due to shurtdown)
  • Science Hack Day listings: http://sciencehackday.pbworks.com/w/page/24500475/Datasets

• Using tools we've learned so far, display the data in a way that answers your question. Teacher (and TA's hopefully) will be circling to answer questions

Time Total: 2:30

-- 15 min break, may be mixed in earlier with the on-your-own time --

Time Total: 2:45

E) Present to the Group - 15 min * Each pair in the tutorial will present the question they asked and what they found to the group.

Time Total: 3:00