Class meetings: Mondays, 3-5pm
Office hours: TBA
Email: feehan [at] berkeley.edu
Web: www.dennisfeehan.org/teaching/2021sp_data88.html
Piazza page: https://piazza.com/berkeley/spring2021/data88/home
(Syllabus last updated: 2021-April-12)
Demography is the science of populations and how they change—including death, sex, migration, marriage, and more. Today, demography is a critical part of answering the most pressing questions that face populations all over the world: who is most vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic? Why do some countries become rich, while some remain poor? Which forces guide the shifting landscape of politics and voting? In this connector, we will take a tour of cutting-edge problems in demography and how data science can be used to help address them.
Please re-check the syllabus before you start each week’s reading; it will be updated as the semester progresses
| Week | Date | Topic | Lab | Hwk | Other materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mon, Jan 25 | Intro | |||
| 2 | Mon, Feb 1 | The life table and life and death in the US | Lab 1: Exploring the lifetable | ||
| 3 | Mon, Feb 8 | Life and death around the world | Lab 2: Life and death around the world | Hwk 1 | |
| 4 | Mon, Feb 15 | HOLIDAY (NO CLASS) | |||
| 5 | Mon, Feb 22 | Fertility | Lab 3: Fertility | ||
| 6 | Mon, Mar 1 | Population growth | Lab 4: Introduction to population growth | ||
| 7 | Mon, Mar 8 | The demographic transition and projections | Lab 5: Projections and formal demography | Hwk 2 | |
| 8 | Mon, Mar 15 | The demographic dividend | Lab 6: The demographic dividend | ||
| 9 | Mon, Mar 22 | SPRING BREAK | |||
| 10 | Mon, Mar 29 | Migration and space | Lab 7: Migration and space | Hwk 3 | |
| 11 | Mon, Apr 5 | Political demography | Lab 8: Political demography | ||
| 12 | Mon, Apr 12 | Exploring project datasets | Lab 9: Exploring project datasets | ||
| 13 | Mon, Apr 19 | No class (meet with me about projects) | Project | ||
| 14 | Mon, Apr 26 | Project presentations |
Class will typically start with a fairly brief lecture, and will then will introduce and develop theoretical and technical concepts in the study of demography. To illustrate these ideas, some of the lectures will have a live lab component, where we will interactively discuss and work through an analysis in a Jupyter notebook. These live labs will help us explore and develop intuition about key concepts in the course.
You are responsible for all of the material covered in lectures, as well as any announcements made there.
Attending class, doing assigned readings, and contributing to class discussions are all important to learning the material we will cover.
Part of almost every class will be devoted to working through hands-on labs. These labs will guide you through analysis of demographic problems and datasets. The labs will require you to build on the Python skills you will be learning in Data 8, The labs will also give you a chance to communicate the results of your analysis in writing.
The homework is an essential part of the learning that you will do in the class; there will be approximately 3 homework assignments, which will build on the concepts we discuss in class and the skills that we learn in the labs.
The final project will give you and a partner the opportunity to use a demographic dataset to pose a question, answer the question, and communicate your results in writing and through plots.
| Component | % of grade |
|---|---|
| Reading and class participation | 5 |
| In-class labs | 35 |
| Homework | 30 |
| Final project | 30 |
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Please see the instructor to discuss accommodations for physical disabilities, medical disabilities and learning disabilities.
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