RCN-UBE Incubator: The Biological and Environmental Data Education Network

生物与环境数据教育（BEDE）项目旨在创建一个由生物学家和数据科学家组成的社区，致力于授权本科教师将数据科学引入生物学和环境科学课程。在某种程度上，现在所有的科学家都必须成为数据科学家——他们必须在协作、可重复研究的背景下管理、分析和交流数据。此外，未来的专业人员将需要具备数据科学技能，以处理农业、环境管理和公共卫生方面的紧急问题。然而，大多数生物学和环境科学专业的学生毕业时几乎没有数据科学的经验。BEDE网络将通过专注于开发技术技能、课程资源和本科教师的教学信心来帮助解决这一需求，以便他们能够更有意地在课堂和实验室中包含核心数据科学技能。通过与科学家、生物学和环境科学教育工作者的广泛合作，BEDE将开发培训讲习班、课程材料和最佳实践，几乎任何机构和几乎任何课程的教育工作者都可以采用。最近的技术进步，包括计算能力的增强、传感器技术、公开的软件和数据以及互联网，从根本上重塑了生物学和环境科学。随着这些进步，复杂的多学科问题以及紧迫的环境和公共卫生问题导致了科学文化和实践的变化，并转向更大的合作、问责制和透明度。这些技术进步和文化变化代表了教育方面的挑战：现有的课程和课程并没有让学生做好处理数据密集型问题的准备。为了评估将数据科学整合到生物学和环境科学课程中的主要机会和障碍，BEDE研究人员将使用一项调查来收集有关教师态度和专业知识的数据。来自调查的数据将在BEDE研讨会上进行审查，参与者将：1)根据调查受访者的课程需求开发教师培训研讨会，2)准备一份描述将数据科学纳入生物学和环境科学教育的障碍和机会的立场/回顾文件；3)制定进一步扩大网络的计划。该项目由生物基础设施司生物科学理事会和本科教育司教育和人力资源理事会共同资助，作为其应对《本科生物学教育的愿景与变革：行动呼吁》（http://visionandchange/finalreport/）所提出的挑战的努力的一部分。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Biological and Environmental Data Education (BEDE) project seeks to create a community of biologists and data scientists dedicated to empowering undergraduate instructors to bring data science into biology and environmental science curricula. All scientists must now, to some extent, be data scientists--they must manage, analyze, and communicate about data in the context of collaborative, reproducible research. Furthermore, future professionals will need to have data science skills to deal with urgent problems in agriculture, environmental management, and public health. However, most students in biology and environmental science graduate with little data science experience. The BEDE Network will help address this need by focusing on developing the technical skills, curricular resources, and pedagogical confidence of undergraduate instructors so that they can more intentionally include core data science skills in their classes and labs. By engaging an inclusive community of scientists and biology and environmental science educators, BEDE will develop training workshops, curricular materials, and best practices that can be adopted by educators at almost any institution and in almost any course.Biology and environmental science have been fundamentally reshaped by recent technological advances, including increased computational power, sensor technologies, publicly available software and data, and the Internet. Together with these advances, complex, multidisciplinary questions and urgent environmental and public health problems have led to changes in scientific culture and practice, with shifts toward greater collaboration, accountability, and transparency. These technological advances and cultural changes represent an educational challenge: already-full courses and curricula do not prepare students to address data-intensive problems. To assess the main opportunities and obstacles for integrating data science into biology and environmental science curricula, BEDE investigators will use a survey to gather data on faculty attitudes and expertise about it. Data from the survey will be examined at a BEDE workshop, where participants will: 1) develop Train-the-Teachers workshops based on curricular needs of survey respondents, 2) prepare a position/review paper describing barriers and opportunities to incorporating data science in biology and environmental science education; and 3) develop plans for further expansion of the Network. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.