THIS SPRING, the Data Science department will offer a new course titled DSCI: Data for Good in partnership with the nonprofit Growing Goods, as well as a new version of the DSCI 245 practicum in partnership with the Multnomah County Health Department. In these courses, students will gain practical experience analyzing data sets from community organizations.
Data for Good is a 4-credit course taught by Professor Devin Fitzpatrick. Students will assist Growing Gardens, a local non-profit focusing on community gardening in public schools and correctional facilities in the Portland metro area.
“We will first engage in actual data analysis tasks for them — preparing reports at a professional level, making visualizations and reviewing the skills we need as we go on,” Fitzpatrick said.
Throughout the class, students will review and reflect on the data, and design surveys to collect more data in the future. Fitzpatrick hopes that students will get the opportunity to volunteer at an on-site Growing Gardens spring planting event.
When designing the course, Fitzpatrick reached out to several nonprofits in the area to gauge interest and eventually reached a partnership with Growing Gardens.
“There’s quite a bit of enthusiasm. I ended up picking the organization that has a data team themselves that needed help, and I am confident that we will have a lot of clear direction on what will really help them,” Fitzpatrick said. “The students will get very realistic training and experience that will create really professional level analysis for an organization that will really benefit from it.”
The data science practicum, DSCI 245, is a returning 2-credit course. The practicum was previously centered upon a relationship with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Students worked with students at the University of Arizona to analyze data sets of species under consideration of an endangered listing.
The course now uses data from the Multnomah County Health Department related to cancer diagnoses, prognosis and survival. They will then link these variables to various social demographics. Students will also talk to stakeholders, including local nonprofits, interested in the data to identify their key questions.
Head of Digital Services at Watzek Library Jeremy McWilliams is the instructor of this course. Professors Greta Binford and Sarah Warren were also instrumental in organizing the course and partnership.
“This (course) came from just a bunch of efforts to try to bridge Lewis & Clark with the community,” Binford said.
Fitzpatrick expressed hope that Data for Good will continue to be offered in the future and potentially partner with different local non-profits.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm, I think, both within Lewis & Clark and at potential partner organizations, and it’s just a question of making sure that we continue to act in accord with these strategic imperatives,” he said.
Binford expressed a similar sentiment about the beneficial impact of connecting students with community organizations.
“Our goal is to create opportunities that are not necessarily driven by data science but rather driven by students wanting to make a difference in the world and realizing how data science skills can benefit that,” Binford said.
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