Colab examples

Last updated on 2026-07-14 | Edit this page

Estimated time: NA minutes

Overview

Questions

  • Can you open, edit, and execute python code in a Colab environment

Objectives

  • Familiarize yourself with working with basic python in a Colab environment

Introduction


In this section, you’ll be shown how to open and work with Colab/Jupyter/python. If you are familiar with this, you can skip it.

However, the next part is very important. It’s a Colab notebook that walks you through how to open some of the files we’ll be working with this week so make sure you go through it!

Using Colab


Callout

Optional…for some of you

If you are familiar with python, Jupyter notebooks, and Colab, you can skip this section and move on to “Opening files and making plots”

If you are not familiar with python or Jupyter notebooks or Colab, here are 3 relatively short video lectures from Siena University’s course, DATA 110: Exploratory Data Analysis and Visualization. Links to the empty Colab notebooks are also provided so that you can make a copy and go through the material on your own as well.

Screenshot of video lecture on Colab and python
Screenshot of video lecture on working with Jupyter cells
Screenshot of video lecture on working with Jupyter cells

Opening files and making plots


In this workshop, you’ll be working in a Colab environment to open files (.csv, .root, .parquet, etc.), extract data, and make plots of that data. In this section, you’ll open and run through a Colab notebook to test your setup and your understanding.

Callout

Reminder!

To make sure you can save your edits, after you’ve opened the file, go to the File dropdown menu, and select “Save a copy in Drive”.

Screenshot of colab notebook output
Key Points
  • Colab notebooks are an easy way to write, edit, execute and share python code