If you鈥檝e ever wondered where the animals at the Jacksonville Humane Society came in from, Dr. Daniel Moseley鈥檚 Data Science Foundations students probably have an answer for you.
In a partnership with the Geography department and professors Dr. Ashley Johnson and Dr. Ray Oldakowski, Dr. Moseley is bringing Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping to his data students and giving them a way to apply their skills to a real-world example.
He had five students working on the project in the fall and has 11 this spring.
鈥淢any times when people say working on 鈥渞eal world鈥� problems, it can often just mean
going from a theoretical framework to an applied one, but often there鈥檚 no connection
to where the data is coming from,鈥� Dr. Moseley said. 鈥淭o get this going, I reached
out to Lyndsay Layendecker, Director of Community Partnerships at the Jacksonville
Humane Society, who is a former educator herself, and she posed some questions and
gave us some data.鈥�
The data science students looked at where heartworms were most prevalent in stray intakes, where the most kittens were being born or what parts of the city yielded the most stray animal intakes.
Students are utilizing tools within the Python program including Pandas, Numpy and Seaborn. Others are using their skills to pull together data visualizations, such as the one below, which shows the zip codes with the highest stray dog intakes.
The students aren鈥檛 just using the data to sharpen their skills. They鈥檙e also helping the Humane Society evaluate the effectiveness of its stray-hold policy. When they know where the strays are coming from most often, the Humane Society can allocate resources accordingly.
鈥淭he intent is to help Jax Humane leverage the data they collect to make data-informed decisions,鈥� Moseley said.
It鈥檚 not the first time 小蓝视频 has lent a hand to the Jacksonville Humane Society. It鈥檚 a key location for the annual Charter Day of community service, held every year in April to honor the day JU was chartered.
Linda Berry Stein, the namesake for the Linda Berry Stein College of Fine Arts and Humanities, lends a hand along with a group of 鈥淪teiners鈥�: students who received scholarships made possible by Linda and David Stein.
The Steins are also avid supporters of the Jacksonville Humane Society.
On April 14, Stein and the Steiners will be helping out at the Humane Society again as part of Charter Day 2022.
