[R-sig-teaching] Teaching R to Environmental Scientists

[Arthur Georges]

Hi,

Great to discover this mailing list. I have been running a course in 
environmental statistics using SAS for some years now, but have 
recently moved to delivering the material online or in mixed mode 
delivery. It would not come as a surprise to you as R users that the 
SAS licencing is getting in the way of this, as the students know no 
national boundaries, and distributing SAS across the globe is problematic.

I am therefore exploring switching to R. I do so with some 
trepidation, as I chose SAS in part because the code is intelligible 
to novice programmers (I use the command line approach for 
pedagogical reasons) whereas R syntax is likely to present a greater 
obstacle to learning for budding environmental scientists. Can anyone 
comment on their experiences with this? Are SAS and SPSS more 
suitable for undergraduate levels, and R better introduced at 
graduate level? Should I not go there for the undergrads? Any tricks 
of the trade?

My course is on http://ecology.lamsinternational.com/ and you will 
note that there is an Introductory R module there that I have not yet 
trialed on a class -- plan to in February. If you want to poke around 
in there, the enrolment key is Fisher.

All the best,

Arthur