Developing online teaching tools for field ecology and data science through an EREN-NEON partnership

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This award to Ohio Wesleyan University facilitates adaptation of ongoing and new projects by the Ecological Research as Education Network (EREN) into online learning modules. The modules will integrate data generated locally by students and instructors with NEON data, providing the foundation for the learning experiences. Field-based ecological research experiences across diverse locations will be enabled, mitigating the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate education, specifically ecological field research experiences. The modules will be widely disseminated to increase their accessibility, use and impacts, including building students’ skills and competencies in data management and analysis. The project also presents a strategy to engage with early career faculty and faculty from underrepresented groups through the relationships that both EREN and NEON have built, supported by the wide distribution to increase use of the modules.The award leverages the relationship that EREN has developed with undergraduate institutions that serve as primary conduits for preparing undergraduate students for STEM careers. Thus, the training modules will facilitate the preparation of the next generation of research scientist, promoting the development of the intellectual foundation, and the technical and analytical skills needed for success. The project takes advantage of the networks and collaborations developed through EREN and is augmented through partnering with NEON scientists. EREN’s experience enabling collaborative field ecology projects, distributed across multiple sites and targeting mostly undergraduate institutions is complemented by NEON’s high-quality, standardized data from 81 field sites across the United States. This partnership between EREN and NEON will enable the development of novel collaborative research projects driven by NEON data. The impact of the modules will be enhanced through wide distribution, use in webinar training sessions, and the publishing of written materials on the EREN and NEON websites. Plans to strengthen the interactions with future, in-person workshops will help to consolidate and sustain the collaborations.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.