RCN-UBE: Establishing an Ecological Research/Education Network at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

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This award is supporting development of an integrated research/education network among ecologists at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), with the goal of enhancing the involvement of undergraduates in large-scale ecological and environmental science research. Towards this goal, the network is 1) developing collaborative research projects at regional to continental scales, with special attention to the constraints of scientists with significant teaching responsibilities; 2) designing those projects to maximize student engagement in authentic science while maintaining a goal of generating publication-quality, transformative data; 3) creating a continental-scale ecology course module that will be team-taught by scientist-educators distributed across different PUIs, using data from collaborative projects as a centerpiece; 4) enhancing the role of PUI scientists and their students in existing and emerging ecological research networks, such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON); and 5) creating an online database of future and existing data sets collected from the network of PUIs. The project aims to include any and all researchers at PUIs that perform long-term ecological research with undergraduates, and that have the potential to incorporate the network's research/education experiences into their curriculum.The intellectual merit of this research/education network is based in its potential to engage the considerable intellectual and labor capital at PUI institutions to advance continental-scale ecology, and to produce workable models for how PUIs can contribute to continental science and develop vital and sustainable research programs through collaboration. Consistent with the underlying premise that collaborative research is a highly effective teaching tool, the network is providing guidelines for creating rich ecological learning experiences based on this approach.The broader impacts of this network are inherent in giving undergraduate students at PUIs greater access to authentic, collaborative, large-scale research projects. By involving students in all phases of these studies through both traditional teaching labs and independent research, this network aims to further their ability to think across scales and disciplines, enhance their sense of connections among sites, and broaden their understanding of how ecological drivers vary over space and time. Students are experiencing scientific collaboration first-hand through interactions with peers and faculty with diverse expertise at a range of PUIs, as they work in teams to address ecological questions. Additionally, the network is offering workshops aimed at broadening participation of underrepresented groups in ecological research with undergraduates, is encouraging PUI ecologists to engage in existing ecological research networks, and is making its activities, datasets and assessment results publically available via a website, workshops, and presentations at annual meetings.This project is supported jointly by the Biological Sciences Directorate and the Division of Undergraduate Education.