The Life Starter
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Course Library · Lesson 4 of 6
Digital · Guided lesson

Combine code and explanation

About 31 minutes · 6 reading + 25 practice and checks
Time includes reading, practice, and questions. Extra videos or further study are optional.
See this course’s project requirements

An executable notebook and script that regenerate checked attendance totals, with raw data, an exclusion log, a data dictionary and a controlled rerun.

Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.

What to include

  • Question and inclusion rules.
  • Preserved input and four-field dictionary.
  • Executable analysis with exclusion reasons.
  • Checked site/total reconciliation and interpretation.
  • Clean-session baseline, correction test and complete handoff.

Review and revise

Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.

  • The stated metric matches the code.
  • Exclusions and guards are explicit.
  • Clean runs reproduce expected totals.
  • The package contains enough information to rerun and interpret it.
Open the full course project
Want more background?
Before you begin

The idea in everyday life

Rebuild a fictional attendance result from preserved data and executable steps.

The idea

A notebook should explain why the code exists and what its output means.

Follow along

Combine code and explanation — guided practice

Connect notebook outputs to a precise narrative and independent checks.

Use free local JupyterLab with a Python 3 kernel, or an equivalent notebook environment that can read uploaded local files. Put analysis.ipynb and attendance.csv in the same new practice folder; no extra Python packages are used by the analysis. The CSV rows are S1 north 8 held; S2 south 6 held; S3 north blank held; S4 south 0 canceled; S5 north 7 held; S6 south 5 held; S7 north 4 held; S8 south 9 held. The supplied analyze.py runs the same calculation with Python from this folder. Use only these fictional records.

  1. 1. Inspect code and text cells

    Identify the Markdown question, executable cell and interpretation cell.

    You should see: Narrative and executable evidence occupy distinct cell types.

    Readers need both reasoning and a way to rerun it.

  2. 2. Check site totals

    Read by_site in result.json and add the included rows by hand.

    You should see: north=8+7+4=19; south=6+5+9=20.

    An independent calculation checks grouping.

  3. 3. Check reconciliation

    Read the two assertions and verify 6+2=8 and 19+20=39.

    You should see: Both accounting identities hold.

    Assertions test structural consistency, not every possible truth.

  4. 4. Write the interpretation

    State 39 recorded visits across 6 included sessions; two rows excluded; north 19/south 20.

    You should see: The text matches the output and unit.

    Do not turn a count difference into a causal explanation.

Now change one thing

Site totals are 14 and 18. Enter the combined total.

Your work

What to finish

An annotated notebook interpretation with two reconciliation checks.

Common mistake

Watch for this

Leaving narrative numbers unchanged after modifying the code or input.

How can I tell I understand it?

Complete the changed case, explain your result, and pass the three application checks.

Try 3 questions

Quick knowledge check

Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.

Not yet passed

You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.

1A notebook output changes from 30 to 34 while its paragraph still says 30. What failed?
2An assertion confirms included plus excluded equals raw rows. What does it establish?
3Site A has 20 visits and site B has 18. What can the totals alone support?
0 of 3 answeredApply the lesson to a short question, then review the explanation.
4
Finish this lesson

Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.

Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.

Go to the knowledge check
Optional course overview video · same video as Lesson 1
Corey SchaferJupyter Notebook Tutorial: Introduction, Setup, and WalkthroughYouTube
Optional course overview

Jupyter Notebook Tutorial: Introduction, Setup, and Walkthrough

From Corey Schafer. Watch here or open it on YouTube .

Optional course overview. Follow the written steps below at your own pace.
Tools, templates, and lesson sources

Tools and templates

Tools open in a new tab so you can keep your place here.

Sources and further reading

Explore the references behind this lesson.

Reproducible Science Curriculum: Modifying data
Source & access notes · checked 2026-09-12

Opened and inspected on 2026-09-12: Preserving raw data and recording transformations.

Access: Free public web page; no paid enrollment required.

Reuse: The linked curriculum license page identifies instructional material as CC BY 4.0. Link only; LifeStarter data, code and explanations are independently authored.

JupyterLab: Notebooks
Source & access notes · checked 2026-09-12

Opened and inspected on 2026-09-12: Code, Markdown and notebook execution.

Access: Free public web page; no paid enrollment required.

Reuse: Public reference; link only. LifeStarter prose, exercises and files are independently authored.

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