DS 2003: Communicating with Data

Fall 2026 · Mon/Wed/Fri · Sarah Groves · Syllabus · Computer setup guide · Canvas

Office hours: Fri 1–2 pm, Rm 437 (Sarah) · Wed 1–2 pm, Capital One Hub (Isabelle Lee, TA)

Every dataset we've used so far, in one place. If a lab reads a CSV, save it in the same folder as the notebook. The penguins and volcano data load straight from the web, so you don't need to download them.

Palmer penguins

344 rows × 7 columns

Measurements of 344 penguins (three species) from three islands in the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica: bill length and depth, flipper length, body mass, sex.

penguins.csv (seaborn-data)

Or: pip install palmerpenguins, then from palmerpenguins import load_penguins

Used in: Fri 8/28 Lab 0: Python review; Fri 9/18 Lab 3: anatomy of a figure; Fri 9/25 Lab 4: encodings, color & chart types

Smithsonian Holocene volcanoes

1,328 rows × 20 columns

The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program's list of volcanoes active in the last ~12,000 years: name, country, region, type, elevation, and how strong the evidence of eruption is.

Smithsonian_VOTW_Holocene_Volcanoes.csv

Used in: Fri 9/4 Lab 1: pandas & data types; Fri 9/18 Lab 3: anatomy of a figure

Fast food nutrition

515 rows × 18 columns · 48 KB

Nutrition facts for 515 menu items from eight fast food chains: calories, fat, sodium, carbs, sugar, protein, and a few vitamins.

fastfood.csv

Used in: Fri 9/11 Lab 2: grouping & aggregating; Fri 9/18 Lab 3: anatomy of a figure; Fri 9/25 Lab 4: encodings, color & chart types; Mon 9/28 Question storm

NYC flights, 2013

336,776 rows × 19 columns · 33 MB

Every flight that departed New York City's three airports (JFK, LGA, EWR) in 2013: scheduled and actual times, delays, carrier, origin, destination, distance.

flights.csv

Or: pip install nycflights13, then import nycflights13 as nf; nf.flights

Used in: Fri 9/11 Lab 2: grouping & aggregating; Fri 9/18 Lab 3: anatomy of a figure; Fri 9/25 Lab 4: encodings, color & chart types

Bad chart redesign

Data behind the four charts from the Fixing bad charts activity (Wed 9/30) and Lab 5. Some are collected from the original source; where the raw data wasn't available, it's a synthetic best guess.

Chart A: US household income & financial assets (see chart)

Chart B: ranked game rating over time (see chart)

gaming_scores.csv

Chart C: Florida firearm murders & national crime rates (see chart)

Chart D: slime mold traits by group (synthetic) (see chart)

biology_dataset_synthetic.csv

Used in: Wed 9/30 Fixing bad charts; Fri 10/2 Lab 5: bad chart redesign