Here’s a look at some of the things you can do with public environmental data and R, an open-source, totally free coding language for data analysis.

Toxics Release Inventory data

Carcinogens are substances that cause cancer, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publishes data annually showing how much of each carcinogen industrial sites around the nation release into the environment. This interactive map and table let you explore data for Tennessee.

See the R code that produced these results

Gas heating

Heating a home with natural gas produces carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey include (among many other things) estimated percentages of how many households in county subdivisions rely on natural gas for heat. R can map these estimates interactively and graph averages for each county:

See the R code that produced these results

Weather data

Open-Meteo offers free daily weather data for the past 80 years about any location in the world, with a 10-kilometer (roughly six-mile) resolution. Here’s a sampling of Open-Meteo data from the past two years, centered on my address in the Blackman area of Rutherford County:

See the R code that produced these results

Want to learn more?

Check out the Spring 2026 edition of JOUR 3841 Data Skills for Media Professionals.