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Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course

Experience and training in field work are critical components of undergraduate education in ecology, and many university courses incorporate field‐based or experiential components into the curriculum in order to provide students hands‐on experience. Due to the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the...

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Autores principales: Gerhart, Laci M., Jadallah, Christopher C., Angulo, Sarah S., Ira, Gregory C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8013971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33821180
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7187
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author Gerhart, Laci M.
Jadallah, Christopher C.
Angulo, Sarah S.
Ira, Gregory C.
author_facet Gerhart, Laci M.
Jadallah, Christopher C.
Angulo, Sarah S.
Ira, Gregory C.
author_sort Gerhart, Laci M.
collection PubMed
description Experience and training in field work are critical components of undergraduate education in ecology, and many university courses incorporate field‐based or experiential components into the curriculum in order to provide students hands‐on experience. Due to the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the sudden shift to remote instruction in the spring of 2020, many instructors of such courses found themselves struggling to identify strategies for developing rigorous field activities that could be completed online, solo, and from a student's backyard. This case study illustrates the process by which one field‐based course, a UC California Naturalist certification course offered at the University of California, Davis, transitioned to fully remote instruction. The transition relied on established, publicly available, online participatory science platforms (e.g., iNaturalist) to which the students contributed data and field observations remotely. Student feedback on the course and voluntary‐continued engagement with the participatory science platforms indicates that the student perspective of the experience was on par with previous traditional offerings of the course. This case study also includes topics and participatory science resources for consideration by faculty facing a similar transition from group field activities to remote, individual field‐based experiences.
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spelling pubmed-80139712021-04-01 Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course Gerhart, Laci M. Jadallah, Christopher C. Angulo, Sarah S. Ira, Gregory C. Ecol Evol Academic Practice in Ecology and Evolution Experience and training in field work are critical components of undergraduate education in ecology, and many university courses incorporate field‐based or experiential components into the curriculum in order to provide students hands‐on experience. Due to the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the sudden shift to remote instruction in the spring of 2020, many instructors of such courses found themselves struggling to identify strategies for developing rigorous field activities that could be completed online, solo, and from a student's backyard. This case study illustrates the process by which one field‐based course, a UC California Naturalist certification course offered at the University of California, Davis, transitioned to fully remote instruction. The transition relied on established, publicly available, online participatory science platforms (e.g., iNaturalist) to which the students contributed data and field observations remotely. Student feedback on the course and voluntary‐continued engagement with the participatory science platforms indicates that the student perspective of the experience was on par with previous traditional offerings of the course. This case study also includes topics and participatory science resources for consideration by faculty facing a similar transition from group field activities to remote, individual field‐based experiences. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8013971/ /pubmed/33821180 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7187 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Academic Practice in Ecology and Evolution
Gerhart, Laci M.
Jadallah, Christopher C.
Angulo, Sarah S.
Ira, Gregory C.
Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title_full Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title_fullStr Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title_full_unstemmed Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title_short Teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: A COVID‐19 case study of a UC California Naturalist course
title_sort teaching an experiential field course via online participatory science projects: a covid‐19 case study of a uc california naturalist course
topic Academic Practice in Ecology and Evolution
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8013971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33821180
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7187
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