School of Ants goes to college: integrating citizen science into the general education classroom increases engagement with science

Vitone, Tyler; Stofer, Kathryn A.; Steininger, M.; Hulcr, Jiří; Dunn, Robert R.; Lucky, Andrea

doi:10.22323/2.15010203

Cited by 53 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…SOA was designed to facilitate public engagement in scientific research; one goal was to use participant-collected samples of widespread ants for population genetic studies. Other goals included increasing interest and trust in science through public participation in scientific research (Vitone et al, 2016), facilitating monitoring of ant distributions in human-modified environments (Lucky et al, 2014), and encouraging the study of urban biodiversity.…”

Section: Specimen Collection and Preparationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Pavement to Population Genomics: Characterizing a Long-Established Non-native Ant in North America Through Citizen Science and ddRADseq

et al. 2019

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Clarifying the population structure and introduction history of non-native species is essential to preventing and mitigating effects of invasion, yet the invasion history of many long-established non-native species remain poorly understood. This study characterized the population structure of one of the most commonly encountered urban ants in North America using public participant-collected specimens and double-digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq). Based on this genomic approach we confirm the identity of populations ranging across the continent as Tetramorium immigrans Santschi, and report low genetic diversity across its range, suggesting that this entire population resulted from the establishment of one single, or a few closely related ant colonies, approximately 200 years ago. The absence of strong population structure suggests that this ant's spread across North America has been repeatedly aided by human-assisted dispersal. We find no evidence of inbreeding in T. immigrans; this contrasts with the inbreeding and unicoloniality of many other invasive ants. These results demonstrate how collections-based public participatory science and emerging highthroughput sequencing techniques each have the potential to vastly improve the amount of data available to researchers. Together, these techniques can be deployed to address ecological and evolutionary questions, including questions about invasion biology, in nonmodel organisms. We suggest that this model is particularly well-suited for research on common taxa that are ecologically important but poorly understood.

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Section: Specimen Collection and Preparationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Pavement to Population Genomics: Characterizing a Long-Established Non-native Ant in North America Through Citizen Science and ddRADseq

et al. 2019

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“…Public participation in scientific research can influence participants' knowledge of their study system (Brossard, Lewenstein, and Bonney 2005;Evans et al 2005), science literacy (Cronje et al 2011), ability to understand and engage in the scientific method (Trumbull et al 2000), and conservation actions (Devictor, Whittaker, and Beltrame 2010). Most research investigating the social impacts of PPSR is focused on adult participants, although some work has focused on youth and young adult participants (Kountoupes and Oberhauser 2008;Hillier and Kitsantis 2014;Vitone et al 2016;Ballard, Dixon, and Harris 2017). Youth may engage with PPSR through both extracurricular activities and when PPSR projects are embedded in the school curriculum.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going Squirrelly: Evaluating Educational Outcomes of a Curriculum-aligned Citizen Science Investigation of Non-native Squirrels

Spicer

Nadolny

Fraser

2020

CSTP

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“…For example, the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) (https://www.globe.gov/about/overview) platform is an international science and education programme that works with citizens, students, teachers and scientists across the globe in helping them partake in data collection and the scientific process. This initiative allows the contributors to help us better understand the Earth system and global environment, while providing them with important insights into realworld research (Allen et al, 2011;Mitchell et al, 2017;Vitone et al, 2016).…”

Section: Resolving Data Issues Using a Crowdsourced Student Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geo-locate Project: A novel approach to resolving meteorological station location issues with the assistance of undergraduate students

Noone¹,

Brody²,

Brown³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The Global Land and Marine Observations Database aims to produce a comprehensive land based meteorological data archive and inventory. This requires the compilation of available land-based station meteorological data information from all known available in-situ meteorological data repositories/sources at multiple timescales (e.g. sub-daily, daily and monthly). During this process the service team members have identified that many of the data sources contained stations with incorrect location coordinates. These stations cannot be included in the processing to be served via the Copernicus Climate Change Service until the issues are satisfactorily resolved. Many of these stations are located in regions of the world where a sparsity of climate data currently exists, such as Southeast Asia and South America. As such, resolving these issues would provide important additional climate data, but this is a very labour-intensive task. Therefore, we have developed the Geo-locate project enrolling the help of undergraduate Geography students at Maynooth University, Ireland, to resolve some of the land-based station geolocation issues. We have successfully run two Geo-locate projects, the first in the second semester of the 2017/18 academic year and the second in the 2018/19 academic year. Both iterations to date have been very successful with 1926 out of 2168 total candidate stations ostensibly resolved, which equates to an 88&#8201;% success rate. At the same time, students gained critical skills helping to meet the expected pedagogical outcomes of the second-year curriculum, while producing a lasting scientific legacy. We asked the class of 2018/19 to reflect critically upon the outcomes and present the results herein which provide important feedback on what students felt that they gained from their participation and how we may improve the experience and learning outcomes in future. We will be continuing to run Geo-locate projects over the next few years. Due to the success of the Geo-locate project we encourage other organisations to investigate the potential for engaging university students to help resolve similar data issues while enriching the student experience and aiding the delivery of learning outcomes. This paper provides details of the project, and all supporting information such as project guidelines and templates to enable this. </p>

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School of Ants goes to college: integrating citizen science into the general education classroom increases engagement with science

Cited by 53 publications

References 27 publications

From Pavement to Population Genomics: Characterizing a Long-Established Non-native Ant in North America Through Citizen Science and ddRADseq

From Pavement to Population Genomics: Characterizing a Long-Established Non-native Ant in North America Through Citizen Science and ddRADseq

Going Squirrelly: Evaluating Educational Outcomes of a Curriculum-aligned Citizen Science Investigation of Non-native Squirrels

Geo-locate Project: A novel approach to resolving meteorological station location issues with the assistance of undergraduate students

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