GSN Node activities: Grassland Node hosts ‘Introduction to Python’ course

By Tamanna Patel, External Liaison, SAEON Graduate Student Network Tweet

The SAEON Grasslands-Forests-Wetlands Node hosted an Introduction to Python workshop for GSN members in August.

The workshop was based at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in Pietermaritzburg, hosts of the SAEON Node.

GSN members attending the Python workshop Attendees using Python, with facilitator Ben Brooker assisting

We were fortunate to have two experienced Python facilitators from the Westville Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Life Sciences. François Chabannes (intern) led the course, with Ben Brooker assisting on the floor. Learning coding software requires a lot of practical work, so it was very useful to have someone walking around assisting the attendees throughout the course.

As most of the attendees had never used Python before, the first day covered the very basics with regards to tools, loops, conditions, lists, arrays, strings, curve plotting, surface plotting and histograms. Day 2 consisted of using a txt file, 1D interpolation method, noise filtering method, writing in a txt file, 2D & 3D interpolations.

The facilitators gave the attendees the Python codes at the end of the two-day workshop so they could refer to it and practise in their own time with their own data.

A special thank you to the Grasslands-Forests-Wetlands Node team for their help in ensuring this activity was a success.

Attendees get to grips with the intricacies of Python The workshop was based at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in Pietermaritzburg François Chabannes (left) and Ben Brooker, facilitators of the Python workshop, in action

2020 Induction Meeting

The GSN steering committee is currently planning an Induction Meeting and Training Workshop in February 2020 for a new committee to take over and plan the 2020 Indibano. This will be hosted by the Grasslands-Forests-Wetlands Node.

Node sponsors are to nominate individuals from their Node to be part of the new GSN steering committee. The induction meeting will be followed by a two-day R and QGIS training workshop for students based near the Node. Interested delegates had to RSVP their attendance by 4 December 2019 using a Google form which was advertised on all GSN platforms.

We would like to encourage GSN members to keep visiting our website and social media pages for more incredible opportunities like these.

Find the SAEON GSN on:

• Facebook: SAEON GSN 
• Twitter: @SAEON_GSN 
• Website: http://gsn.dirisa.org/ 
• Email: gsn@saeon.ac.za