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You can do this with the command: chmod a+r with the location of your env folder after the '+r '.
To enable your students to leverage the environment switching inside Jupyter Notebook you will need to install the appropriate kernels for the languages you have inside the environment in order for them to be able to switch kernels.
You can do this with the following commands within the environment you want to share:
To install the python kernel run: conda install -c anaconda ipykernel
To install the R kernel run: conda install -c r r-irkernel