Anaconda Import Error, module just installed isn't found

Question

Yet another Import Error issue, I know... I have been through many posts on stackoverflow about this issue but nothing seem to help

Here is the thing, I am not a windows person, I have used anaconda on mac and Linux for quite a while but now I have to train someone on Python with windows10. So I tried to install Anaconda, thinking oh well that should be easy...

What I did :

1. Install miniconda3
2. Create a conda environment named 'first' - activated it
3. Install numpy scipy and geopandas (conda install -c conda-forge geopandas)
4. Start IPython
5. Typed import geopandas and got an Import Error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'geopandas'

Note that Geopandas and all packages appear in the pip list of my environment

So then I Import sys and typed sys.path with this result (sys.executable was fine)

['',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\Scripts',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\python36.zip',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\DLLs',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib\\site-packages',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\win32',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\win32\\lib',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\Pythonwin',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\Miniconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\IPython\\extensions',
 'C:\\Users\\mine\\.ipython']

I believe I should see something about my conda environment in there

c:\users\mine\miniconda3\envs\first\ 

What did I do wrong? How do I fix it and why do you think that happened? Should I report it to anaconda as it seems to be a pretty annoying thing. In case that helps :

(first) C:\Users\mine>conda info -a

     active environment : first
    active env location : C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first
            shell level : 2
       user config file : C:\Users\mine\.condarc
 populated config files :
          conda version : 4.4.10
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.6.3.final.0
       base environment : C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3  (writable)
           channel URLs : https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/main/win-64
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/free/win-64
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/free/noarch
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/r/win-64
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/r/noarch
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/pro/win-64
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/pro/noarch
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/msys2/win-64
                          https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/msys2/noarch
          package cache : C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\pkgs
                          C:\Users\mine\AppData\Local\conda\conda\pkgs
       envs directories : C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs
                          C:\Users\mine\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs
                          C:\Users\mine\.conda\envs
               platform : win-64
             user-agent : conda/4.4.10 requests/2.18.4 CPython/3.6.3 Windows/10 Windows/10.0.16299
          administrator : False
             netrc file : None
           offline mode : False

# conda environments:
#
base                     C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3
first                 *  C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first

sys.version: 3.6.3 |Anaconda, Inc.| (default, Nov  8 ...
sys.prefix: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3
sys.executable: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\python.exe
conda location: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\lib\site-packages\conda
conda-build: None
conda-env: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\Scripts\conda-env.exe
user site dirs:

CIO_TEST: <not set>
CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV: first
CONDA_PREFIX: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first
CONDA_PREFIX_1: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3
CONDA_PROMPT_MODIFIER: (first)
CONDA_PYTHON_EXE: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\python.exe
CONDA_ROOT: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3
CONDA_SHLVL: 2
HOMEPATH: \Users\mine
PATH: C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first\Library\mingw-w64\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first\Library\usr\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first\Library\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first\Scripts;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\envs\first\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\Library\mingw-w64\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\Library\usr\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\Library\bin;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\Scripts;C:\Users\mine\Miniconda3\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Users\mine\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;
PSMODULEPATH: C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules
PYTHONIOENCODING: 1252
REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE: <not set>
SSL_CERT_FILE: <not set>

Answer 1

You also need to install IPython into your new environment:

conda install ipython

otherwise it uses the ipython form "outside" the environment because it is a command line app and not necessary connected to an environment.

You can check IPython you use with:

 where ipython