RCN-UBE Incubator: Building the San Francisco Bay Network for Student Opportunities in Avian Research to enhance STEM education and assess urban impacts on avian ecology

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The project will bring together a group of faculty, students, and volunteers to design an experiential learning and research program focused on the study of birds and their habitats. The program will introduce undergraduate students, especially those from underserved communities, to STEM activities in both the field and laboratory. It will be valuable in shedding light on the dynamics of bird populations in the South San Francisco Bay, which is an important portion of a north-south “highway in the sky” for birds that annually migrate between the northern and southern hemispheres. The project will advance biology education by providing opportunities for hands-on field research and follow-up lab activities for students who do not presently have access to such experiential learning in outdoor settings. It will advance fundamental knowledge by revealing how humans are influencing natural ecological systems, and whether those influences are beneficial or detrimental.This project will create the foundation for a new Research Coordination Network: the San Francisco Bay Research Coordination Network for Student Opportunities in Avian Research. The new network will be composed of investigators from three universities (Stanford University, San Jose State University, and Santa Clara University), a community college (West Valley Community College), and a non-governmental organization (San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory). The intended products are planning workshops, prototypes of outdoor learning modules, and a detailed roadmap for growing and sustaining the program. Prototypes of outdoor learning modules will bring students and faculty into the field to collaboratively learn how to monitor and analyze data pertinent to understanding avian population dynamics in two field areas, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory Coyote Creek Field Station. Follow-up studies in the laboratories of the network participants will include analyses of data the students collect augmented by three decades of bird-census data available from both field sites. Students will also learn to apply cutting-edge analytical techniques such as genome sequencing and GIS tools. The network will bring together resources from the participating institutions to better serve the multicultural and economically disparate constituents of the region. It will demonstrate the need, value, and opportunities for career paths in environmental sciences. Exposure of students to these career paths will diversify their job prospects and train them to be effective stewards of the national and global resources upon which nations ultimately depend. 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.