Python

These tutorials introduce Python for working with data. Work through them in order, in class and outside of class. For setup guides, troubleshooting, and other references, see Resources.

000 Setting up your computer

Install VS Code, uv, Python, and git, turn off VS Code’s built-in AI, make a folder for the course, and make a GitHub account. You do this once.

010 First steps in Python

Set up your first lab, open a notebook, and start working with Python: calculations, errors, variables, types, text, and lists, using the rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

020 Loops, conditions, and dictionaries

Use a loop to clean the punctuation off every word of the rhyme, choose what code runs with conditions, count every word with a dictionary, and write your first function.

025 A counting language model

Build the counting model from class in Python: a table of next words, a random choice at each step, and generated text. Then run it on all of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and make a first plot.

030 Data with pandas

Import a real scientific dataset, the September extent of Arctic sea ice since 1979, with pandas. Look at it, select and filter it, add a column, plot it with seaborn, and fit a line.

Combine twelve files of sea ice data with a loop, find and handle a missing-value code by reading the documentation, summarize by group, look at distributions with box plots and histograms, and find the months in which the ice is shrinking fastest.

000 Setting up your computer

010 First steps in Python

020 Loops, conditions, and dictionaries

025 A counting language model

030 Data with pandas

040 All twelve months