Associate Professor of Biology Norwich University Northfield, Vermont, United States
Background/Question/Methods
The changing landscape of education demands more flexible teaching formats. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many educators to pivot to online or hybrid course delivery. Online teaching and learning presents obstacles to some of the goals science educators value; getting students out into nature, facilitating hands-on research, and giving each student a voice and ownership over their projects.
Results/Conclusions
Here, I present a semester-long laboratory activity designed with the high-school or beginning college level student in mind. Students use samples from their nearest aquatic habitat to create replicate mesocosms in canning jars. Weekly lessons guide students through the basics of population, community, and ecosystem ecology as well as statistical analysis and creation of figures. Students learn low-tech data collection techniques through guided experiments and then apply these methods to their own unique hypothesis-driven experiment. Students gain experience communicating science by presenting their progress in weekly video posts and a presentation of their independent research.
