LibGuides: IB Environmental Systems and Societies ESS: Internal Assessment

Open Access Databases - Sciences

19 Places to Find Free Data Sets for Data Science Projects
A list of online labs and simulations
Agris - AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION
"The AGRIS database contains 11,714,169 records ( including 1,528 datasets ) from 460 data providers." Sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (environment, geography, natural sciences)
arXiv.orgLogin
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 1,692,592 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics.
BioInteractive
Use this site's search engine to find data sets to use for your research.
BioRxiv
The preprint server for biology.
Data Nuggets
"Collection of websites that offer freely available online data."
Elsevier Open Access Journals
Elsevier is a Dutch publishing and analytics company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. All articles in open access journals which are published by Elsevier have undergone peer review and upon acceptance are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download.
Global Invasive Species Database
Kaggle datasets
"Kaggle, a subsidiary of Google LLC, is an online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners." (Wikipedia)
MedRxiv
"Medrxiv is an Internet site distributing unpublished manuscripts about health sciences. It distributes complete, but unpublished manuscripts in the areas of medicine, clinical research, and related health sciences without charge to the reader." (Wikipedia)
NCBI: Genome
"This resource organizes information on genomes including sequences, maps, chromosomes, assemblies, and annotations."
NOAA Physical Sciences Division
"PSD archives a wide range of data ranging from gridded climate datasets extending hundreds of years to real-time wind profiler data at a single location. "
PLOS
PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.
PubMed Central
"PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)."
Reefbase
Has data about coral reefs.
Science Education Resource Center
From Carleton College.
Species+
"Species+ provides a centralised portal for accessing key information on species of global concern."
UCI Machine Learning Repository
"The UCI Machine Learning Repository is a collection of databases, domain theories, and data generators that are used by the machine learning community for the empirical analysis of machine learning algorithms."
USDA Food Composition Databases
"You can search the database by food item, food group, or manufacturer's name to find the nutrient information for your food items. You can also generate lists of foods sorted by nutrient content."
Wallace Resource Library
"Produced by the international biodiversity research and conservation organisation Operation Wallacea, it provides important datasets that students can freely access to guide and inform their learning activities.
WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) data
Health-related statistics from the World Health Organization
Wikipedia list of biological databases
Wiley Open Access Journals
Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines.
Wolfram Alpha - Life Sciences
Wolfram Alpha is a "computational search engine." This page gives some examples of life science searches.
Zooniverse
"The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers."
Other Bio Databases
This Libguide from West Sound Academy has dozens of links to more databases available.
Random list of biological databases

Destiny Library Catalog

Request form for Gate 2

Click here to visit Destiny Homepage

Recommended Databases for ESS

AES database list (with passwords)
This is the complete list of databases available through the AES library. You can access this document if you are signed in to your AES account.

These are the AES subscription databases and journals that will be most helpful for your research.

Britannica Encyclopedia
The most comprehensive K-12 Reference Source.
Science News
This is a magazine that we get in both print and digital form.
Science Online
Explore the relevant topic centers to find a topic. Search with keywords once you have settled on a question.
Issues & Controversies
Controversial topics are often more interesting. What environmental issues are in the news?
EBSCO - Green File
A bibliographic database of information about environmental concerns.
EBSCO - Academic Search Complete
This is the largest multi-topic database at AES. You'll find both popular and scholarly sources here on almost any topic.
JSTOR
JSTOR is the most academic of the databases that AES offers.

Choosing a Topic for Your IA

Choosing a Topic Workshop

The process of choosing a good research question usually starts broad and then gets more specific.

Science Daily

Browse first!

Consider your syllabus. Is there anything you’ve covered or you’re about to cover that you have questions about?
Skim through books and see if anything catches your eye.
Look at the topics available in the science databases listed and see if anything is interesting.

Write down a few broad topics that interest you.

From the broad topics, choose one or two. Quickly brainstorm as many questions as you can related to those topics here:

From your long list of questions, choose a few that are the most interesting. (Mark them with a highlighter or *, or cross off the questions that are out of the running.)

Do some reading.

Read some general articles about the questions and topics you are considering. (Wikipedia and Britannica would be good sources for this.)
Use what you learn from the reading to add to, subtract from, or modify your list of questions.

Ask yourself:

Which of these questions seem manageable?
Which could you answer in the time allowed?
Which fit into the constraints of what can be done at AES in terms of equipment, ethics, etc.

Cross off any questions you are no longer considering.

Of the topics that are still in the running, brainstorm ways you might find the answer to your questions.

From the IB ESS Guide, some of the possible methodologies include: Values and attitude surveys or questionnaires • Interviews • Issues-based inquiries to inform decision-making • Observational fieldwork (natural experiments) • Field manipulation experiments • Ecosystem modelling (including mesocosms or bottle experiments) • Laboratory work • Models of sustainability • Use of systems diagrams or other valid holistic modelling approaches • Elements of environmental impact assessments • Secondary demographic, development and environmental data • Collection of both qualitative and quantitative data

Some of the possible analytical techniques include: Estimations of NPP/GPP or NSP/GSP • Application of descriptive statistics (measures of spread and average) • Application of inferential statistics (testing of null hypotheses) • Other complex calculations • Cartographic analysis • Use of spreadsheets or databases • Detailed calculations of footprints (including ecological, carbon, water footprints)

Get specific.

What information would you need to find to be able to answer the questions? Where might you get that information?
What specialized materials might you need to complete this investigation?

Choose your best question.

Word it carefully. Then write it again, changing just one thing. Then write it again, changing it a little more. Circle your best question.

Citations and Notetaking

Open Access Databases - General

These databases provide free full text access to many scholarly sources.

Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
arXiv
Sponsored by Cornell University. arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 1,669,910 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics.
ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
A US government database that has publications relevant to education, human and natural sciences, and the arts.
F1000 Research
An open access publishing platform supporting data deposition and sharing.
Google Scholar
A search engine that focuses specifically on scholarly articles. It works best if you do an advanced search.
Jurn
Search millions of free academic articles, chapters and theses.
Kaggle datasets
"Kaggle, a subsidiary of Google LLC, is an online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners." (Wikipedia)
National Archives (US)
Contains primary and secondary sources, mostly for US history.
PQDT Open
PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge.
ResearchGate
ResearchGate is the professional network for scientists and researchers. Over 17 million members from all over the world use it to share, discover, and discuss research. We're guided by our mission to connect the world of science and make research open to all.
Semantic Scholar
Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature in all subject areas.
Springer Open
We now offer researchers from all areas of science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences a place to publish open access in journals and books.
Statistics Sweden
Google Dataset Search
"Google Dataset Search is a search engine from Google that helps researchers locate online data that is freely available for use. "

Noodletools

NoodleTools
Sign in with your school Google account.

Turnitin

Notecard Template

Notecards (US letter)
This version is in Googledocs. Please make a copy of it to use it.

IB ESS Information

Official IB ESS Webstie

Useful websites for IB ESS

National Centers for Environmental Information
"NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) hosts and provides public access to one of the most significant archives for environmental data on Earth. Through the Center for Weather and Climate and the Center for Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics, we provide over 25 petabytes of comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical data."
World Statistics
"World Statistics gives free and easy access to data provided by International Organisations, such as the World Bank, the United Nations and Eurostat."
Data.gov
"The home of the U.S. Government’s open data"
Gapminder
"Gapminder is a non-profit venture – a modern “museum” on the Internet – promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals."
Aquastat
This is from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
US Energy Information Administration
Official energy statistics from the US government.
US Geological Survey
"We provide science about the natural hazards that threaten lives and livelihoods, the water, energy, minerals, and other natural resources we rely on, the health of our ecosystems and environment, and the impacts of climate and land-use change."
Where to Find Material Safety Data Sheets on the Internet
World Resources Institute
"World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research organization that spans more than 60 countries."
World Wide Web Virtual Library: Sustainable Development
Ecolex
"ECOLEX is an information service on environmental law, operated jointly by FAO, IUCN and UNEP."
NASA Global Climate Change
"The mission of “Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet” is to provide the public with accurate and timely news and information about Earth’s changing climate, along with current data and visualizations, presented from the unique perspective of NASA, one of the world’s leading climate research agencies."
EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway
"EPA's official open data catalog"
Environmental Working Group
"We are a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment."
PANGAEA
Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science
OECD environmental data and indicators
"The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives."
Nanoos Visualization System (NVS)
NVS is the data portal for NANOOS. It provides easy access to a wide range of data and visualizations for observations and forecasts.
SOCCOM portal for all ARGO data
The Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) program at Princeton University maintains a portal for data from all ARGO ocean drifter data collectors worldwide.
Global Tropical Moored Buoy
The Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array program designs, develops and sustains moored buoy observing systems in the tropics for climate research and forecasting through collaborative multi-national efforts. You can find real-time and historical data from tropical Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, as well as data displays and information about climate variations like El Niño and La Niña.
University of Washington Ocean Drifter Data
UW data from their ocean drifter data collectors. These floats have been deployed as the beginning step in the US ARGO program. ARGO is an international program for deploying profiling drifters in the world oceans.
NestWatch
Volunteers help scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology by collecting data on the successes and failures of nesting birds by tracking nests, clutches, broods, and fledglings.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
They host the eBird database, in collaboration with organizations, regional experts, and users ("eBirders") all over the world.
Project FeederWatch
Project FeederWatch is a winter-long survey of birds that visit feeders at backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders from November through early April and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. This data helps scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology track broad-scale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance.

Creative Commons License

This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Libguide Creator

Linda Hoiseth, MS/HS Librarian

lhoiseth@aes.ac.in

+91 11 2688 8854 Ext: 3358

Twitter: @lhoiseth

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