Course Description
NR 512 – Spatial Statistical Modeling is a course available to advanced undergraduate and graduate students to assist with student research projects that I teach each fall semester. This course also counts towards the Graduate Certificate in Data Analysis available from the Colorado State University Department of Statistics. In this course I push students to develop an understanding of the theories underlying the use of space in statistical analysis and how this can inform ecological processes. Lectures and readings are used to introduce concepts of spatial analysis with embedded discussions and analysis examples. The lab exercises in the course are paired with the lectures to provide the students hands-on experience conducting spatial analysis and a library of R programming code that they can later draw upon. Throughout the course, students work toward developing a spatial analysis project, which they are encouraged to draw from their own graduate research. The course provides students an opportunity to explore different spatial analysis techniques upon their dataset, while also developing the skills needed to communicate the need, approach, and outcomes from spatial analysis.
