Welcome to Youreka Canada

Welcome to the Youreka Canada program! In this course, you will learn how to wrangle data, perform statistical tests, and visualize data with R. The purpose of this textbook is to provide a companion to the Youreka Canada program, which teaches introductory statistics, data science, and research methods. Here, we offer an intuitive approach to data science rather than a rigorous, proof-based course. As such, this textbook does not assume you have any prior knowledge other than basic arithmetic, and it should be accessible to both high school and undergraduate students.

How to use this textbook

Please note that this text goes into additional detail not covered in session. All optional material is marked as OPTIONAL in the headings. Again, note that this text complements the Youreka program. These notes are not a substitute for attending the Youreka sessions!

This text focuses on how the material taught in-session can be applied using the R programming language. As with all things programming, the best way to learn is to actively code. That is, when you read this textbook, open RStudio and play around with the presented code—try to find alternative solutions, or even break the code. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and soon enough, you will be confident to code on your own!

Contributors

This textbook was written by Eddie Guo, Pouria Torabi, Shuce Zhang, Ben Perks, and Devin Aggarwal, who are part of the Youreka Canada Programs Department. A special thanks goes to Matthew Pietrosanu for his critical statistical review of the Youreka program.

Credit

This material was adapted from:

  1. Jennifer Bryan STAT 545 at UBC https://stat545.com/

  2. Teacups, Giraffes, & Statistics by Hasse Walum and Desirée De Leon https://tinystats.github.io/teacups-giraffes-and-statistics/