RCN-UBE Incubator: NEWT: Network Exploring Wildlife Trade

人类交易野生动物已经有几千年的历史，但在过去10年里，合法和非法的野生动物贸易出现了超乎寻常的增长，包括在美国，每年产生的全球收入高达数千亿美元，具有巨大的生物和社会意义。很少有学院或大学为生物学专业的学生提供学习野生动物贸易的许多方面的机会，这些方面包括对野生动物种群的直接影响、入侵物种的建立、疾病的传播--包括动物与人之间的传播--以及保护法、文化史、经济学和社会科学等补充学科。该网络将通过新的课程、学习模块和资源，吸引本科生在野生动物贸易中追求真实的研究问题，让学生在构建研究技能的同时，钻研一个动态和及时的主题。调查野生动物贸易将在一个很大程度上缺乏数据的主题上产生有用的信息，并向学生介绍生物学和相关学科的新职业道路。该网络将促进不同大学和跨学科的师生之间的互动，从而鼓励合作和共享科学发现。基于课程的本科生研究经验构成了这个RCN-UBE网络的基础，来自两年制和四年制院校的参与教师将野生动物贸易模块纳入现有课程或创建新课程。学生将开发研究问题，并将从宠物店、国际贸易数据库、在线宠物论坛和新闻网站收集和分析数据。在本科生物教育中融入研究可以提高生物学科的能力、技能的广度，以及应用知识和技能解决现实世界问题的信心。这一网络将消除传统的研究障碍，例如要求平均高分或其他学术属性，这些要求可能会使寻求研究经验的本科生与众不同，将注册一门课程作为参与研究的唯一必要条件。重要的是，消除参与障碍和该网络提供的其他好处对来自代表性不足群体的学生非常重要，从而促进更具包容性的课堂和研究环境。参与该网络的学生将通过与公共团体分享他们的成果来培养科学交流技能，从而提高社区在野生动物贸易问题上的素养。在启动基于野生动物贸易的课程和课程模块时遇到的项目洞察力、机会和挑战将作为制定完整的RCN-UBE提案的基础。该项目由生物科学局、生物基础设施部和教育与人力资源局、本科生教育部共同资助，作为他们应对《本科生物学教育的愿景与变革：行动号召》(http://visionandchange/finalreport))中提出的挑战的努力的一部分，并由既定的激励竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)提供额外支持。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智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。

Humans have traded wildlife for millennia, but in the past 10 years legal and illegal wildlife trade has exhibited outsized growth, including in the United States, generating global revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually with massive biological and social significance. Few colleges or universities offer opportunities for biology students to study the many facets of wildlife trade, which include direct impacts to wildlife populations, establishment of invasive species, and transmission of disease – including between animals and humans – and complementary disciplines, such as conservation law, cultural history, economics, and social sciences. This network will engage undergraduate biology students in pursuing authentic research questions in wildlife trade through new courses, learning modules, and resources, allowing students to build research skills while delving into a dynamic and timely topic. Investigating wildlife trade will yield useful information on a largely data-deficient topic and also introduce students to new career paths in biology and associated disciplines. The network will foster interactions between faculty and students at different universities, and across disciplines, thus encouraging collaboration and shared scientific discovery.Course-based undergraduate research experiences form the basis of this RCN-UBE network, with participating faculty from two-year and four-year institutions incorporating modules on wildlife trade into existing courses or creating new courses. Students will develop research questions and will collect and analyze data from pet shops, international trade databases, online pet forums, and news sites. Incorporating research in undergraduate biology education leads to increased competency in biological subjects, breadth of skills, and confidence in applying knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems. This network will eliminate traditional barriers to research, such as a requirement of a high grade point average or other scholastic attributes that may distinguish undergraduate students seeking research experience, setting enrollment in a course as the only requirement necessary for participating in research. Importantly, removing barriers to participation and the other benefits provided by this network will be important for students from under-represented groups, thereby fostering more inclusive classrooms and research environments. Students participating in the network will develop skills in science communication by sharing their results with public groups, thereby increasing community literacy in the issue of wildlife trade. Project insights, opportunities, and challenges encountered in initiating wildlife trade-based courses and course modules will serve as a foundation for the development of a full RCN-UBE proposal. 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) with additional support provided by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.