This activity is designed to show students how to perform an ANOVA using RStudio. To integrate the lesson plan with course content in an undergraduate ecology lecture course, students read an accessible scientific article (Chase & Knight 2003) that explores interaction between abiotic (climate and habitat permanence) and biotic (competition & predation) environmental conditions on the population size of mosquitoes. This topic serves as a useful transition from population ecology to species interactions (competition, predation, etc), and data from the study can be easily analyzed with an ANOVA.

The 75-minute lesson/activity starts with a short class discussion of article, followed by a short lecture on practical basics of ANOVA. Students spend the remainder of the time performing ANOVAs using RStudio on data simulated from the Chase & Knight study. Most students should have sufficient time to complete the first ANOVA during class, so the remaining analysis and questions can be completed for homework.