| Abstract Detail
Education and Outreach Mabry, Makenzie [1], Soltis, Douglas [2], Soltis, Pamela [3]. Insights From a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience on Florida Plants and Climate Change. Research has shown that, although academia is doing a better job at providing stipends for undergraduate students to conduct independent research, opportunities are still largely failing to reach students of under-represented groups. One way to combat this shortcoming is to integrate independent research into courses. With natural history collections now digitized and many students interested in developing computational skills, combining these two components into Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) not only is feasible, but also allows us to share the importance of protecting and funding natural collection resources. In our CURE on Florida Plants and Climate Change students gained hands-on research experience by investigating the effects of climate change on 36 species of Florida endemic sand scrub plants. During the 16-week semester, students gained skills in utilizing digitized natural history data including experience with data curation and management, using the programming language R through RStudio, asking for resources from the university supercomputer (HiPerGator), performing ecological niche modeling, using statistical interpretation of models, and science communication. Following the completion of the course, students will be evaluated on how their perception of their STEM identity has changed over the semester, how they identify benefits gained from this research experience, and if this course influences their plans for post-graduate education.
1 - University Of Florida, Florida Museum Of Natural History, 1659 Museum Road, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States
2 - University Of Florida, Dept. of Biology, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
3 - University Of Florida, Florida Museum Of Natural History, Gainesville, FL, 32611.0, United States
Keywords:
CURE
Ecological niche model
Digitized Biocollections.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Number: EO2006
Abstract ID:652
Candidate for Awards:None |
