The code and data examples here were created for the 2015 National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting conference held in Atlanta, Ga., and sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors.

• This hands-on class will use the pgAdmin client to edit and run queries on PostgreSQL. Depending on your operating system and how you installed PostgreSQL, pgAdmin may need to be installed separately.

• In pgAdmin, load the create-tables.sql script and run it. (You may need to change the location of the data files in the three COPY statements.) When finished, you'll have three tables loaded with data:

  • counties: 2010 Census PL94 data.
  • meat_poultry_inspect: USDA data on plants that produce meat and poultry.
  • acs_2012_stats: Derived data from the 2012 American Community Survey.

We'll start with math review before moving on.

• Load the basic-math.sql script and work through each example.

This segment covers how to check your data for problems and how to clean it up safely.

• Load the interview-create.sql script and work through the examples.

Journalists generally like to discover which X is (highest/most/smallest/least/etc.). Here's how to do that with SQL.

• Load the ranks-rates.sql script to work the examples.

PostgreSQL can't match the power of R, Pandas or even Excel for stats, but a few built-in functions can give you a quick read on your data.

• For examples, load the stats-functions.sql script.