Below are links to the exercises I use in Biol 365.
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Basic spreadsheet orientation | First introduction to the Excel interface |
| Analog to digital part 1 | Representing base 10 numbers, letters, and symbols on a computer |
| Analog to digital part 2 | Representing color, sound, and random numbers on a computer |
| Relational joins | Using the MS Access RDBMS or Excel to join tables based on a matching column |
| Graphing in Excel | Graph types in Excel, using graphs to determine the relationship between two numeric variables |
| Formulas and functions | Spreadsheet formulas and functions |
| Data types | Data types in Excel |
| Array formulas | Array formulas - repeated operations on ranges of cells |
| Solver part 1 | Numerical analysis with Solver - finding solutions for equations |
| Solver part 2 | Numerical analysis - finding estimates, goal seeking |
| Curve fitting with Solver part 1 | Fitting a curve to data to estimate parameters |
| Curve fitting with Solver part 2 | Using finite difference approximation to get standard errors of estimates |
| Likelihood part 1 | Using likelihoods for curve fitting |
| Likelihood part 2 | Using likelihoods for assignment testing |
| Randomization testing part 1 | Using Visual Basic for Applications to program a randomization test - alternative to a t-test. Basic setup and macro recording. |
| Randomization testing part 2 | Modifying the recorded macro to add a loop, record the results. |
| Bootstrapping part 1 | Bootstrapping a confidence interval |
| Bootstrapping part 2 | Bootstrapping an odds ratio |
| Programming decisions | Using If...then to make decisions in code |
| Genetic drift simulation parts 1 and 2 | Using VBA to simulate genetic drift. Part 1 - basic setup, single run of 500 generations. Part 2 - repeat 100 runs of 500 generations. |
| Genetic drift simulation parts 3 and 4 | Modifying the simulation to double the population size (part 3) and add immigration (part 4) |