Using the Project EDDIE 'How Does Avian Biodiversity Vary Temporarily and Spatially?' Module in BIO 411: Quantitative Methods for Ecology and Conservation
About this Course
BIO 411: Quantitative Methods for Ecology and Conservation
EDDIE Module Developed
This module allows students to explore how biodiversity metrics vary across landscapes using long term point-count data.
Jump to: Course Context | Teaching Details | Student Outcomes
Relationship of EDDIE Module(s) to my Course
BIO 411 teaches students how to use R to investigate patterns in biological data using data from the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Program as examples. The course introduces students to different statistical methods and asks how these methods can provide insight into biological patterns discussed in the course. During the second to last week of the class, I used the EDDIE module to allow students to apply what they learned over the semester to open-ended data exploration. Until this point in class, students had not explored the correlation between biodiversity and land-use, and many students were excited to investigate the potential impacts of urbanization. Since the student worked extensively in R before completing this module, most quickly ran the provided script. They then made changes to investigate patterns or questions they found most interesting.
Teaching Details
What key suggestions would you give to a colleague before they used the activity in their teaching?
Many students were very excited to investigate how urbanization influences biodiversity. As a result, about 3/4 of the students conducted the same analysis of comparing desert landscapes to urban or residential landscapes. I would encourage the students to make multiple changes to the provided script instead of only investigating one question. Since the script runs and generates figures without any additional tweaks, some students did not fully explore the data and had to be encouraged to make further changes. Additionally, I would further emphasize the temporal element of the data to promote temporal elements into students questions.
How did you address challenges in teaching with the module?
I conducted this module remotely via Zoom, and I found the screen sharing option to be a helpful way for students to ask for help. I also used breakout rooms so students could ask each other questions in smaller groups. The instructor might find it helpful to try and emphasize the spatial and temporal elements of the data so students do not only focus on land use.
Student Outcomes
Students were familiar with conducting portions of analysis or using quantitative methods to answer specific questions at this point in the class. This module highlighted how the questions asked, and the methods used could result in very different findings even when the same data.
Many students appreciated the messy nature of ecological data before this module. However, this module emphasized the importance of cleaning data before analysis and how doing so can streamline future work. Students were also encouraged by how using software such as R can make managing and editing large data sets much more efficient than trying to do so by hand / in excel.