Treat Lesson Material Like Open-Source Software: The Methodology Behind What They Forgot to Teach in Python 101

Abstract

This poster presents an approach for treating Python lesson materials like open-source software, where workshop notebooks are developed, taught, refined through feedback, and released for continued reuse. The poster highlights an example lesson from What They Forgot to Teach in Python 101. The lesson shows researchers how to access modeled data from the National Integrated Water Availability Assessment Data Companion and reproduce a water-storage accumulation figure from the published IWAA report. The workflow is demonstrated at multiple geographic scales, including Pennsylvania, a HUC02 region, and the Pacific Northwest. By combining instruction, executable code, real Earth-science data, and an iterative development process, reusable notebooks can help scientists learn practical workflows while allowing future instructors and researchers to adapt the materials for new datasets, regions, and research questions.