Chapter 13 Introduction

In this activity, you’ll have a chance to become familiar with the BioDIGS soil testing data. This dataset includes information on the inorganic components of each soil sample, particularly metal concentrations. Human activity can increase the concentration of inorganic compounds in the soil. When cars drive on roads, compounds from the exhaust, oil, and other fluids might settle onto the roads and be washed into the soil. When we put salt on roads, parking lots, and sidewalks, the salts themselves will eventually be washed away and enter the ecosystem through both water and soil. Chemicals from factories and other businesses also leech into our environment. All of this means the concentration of heavy metals and other chemicals will vary among the soil samples collected for the BioDIGS project.

13.1 Before You Start

If you do not already have a Google account that you would like to use for accessing Terra, create one now.

If you would like to create a Google account that is associated with your non-Gmail, institutional email address, follow these instructions.

13.2 Objectives

This activity will teach you how to use the AnVIL platform to:

  1. Open data from an R package
  2. Examine objects in R
  3. Calculate summary statistics for variables in the soil testing data
  4. Create and interpret histograms and boxplots for variables in the soil testing data