Assessing the Risk of Invasive Species Using Community Science Data
Matthew Heard, Belmont University
This module introduces students who are already familiar with GIS to doing comparative analyses with large-scale community science (often called citizen science) data sets. Students will explore how we can use ...

Teleconnections
Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Ecosystems can be influenced by teleconnections, in which meteorological, societal, and/or ecological phenomenon link remote regions via cause and effect relationships. Because it is difficult to predict how ...

Using Ecological Forecasts to Guide Decision Making
This module was developed by W.M. Woelmer, R.Q. Thomas, T.N. Moore and C.C. Carey. 21 January 2021. Macrosystems EDDIE: Using Ecological Forecasts to Guide Decision-Making. Macrosystems EDDIE Module 8, Version 1. http://module8.macrosystemseddie.org. Module development was supported by NSF grants DEB-1926050 and DBI-1933016.
Because of increased variability in populations, communities, and ecosystems due to land use and climate change, there is a pressing need to know the future state of ecological systems across space and time. ...

Remote Sensing of Plants and Topography in R
Kyla Dahlin, Michigan State University
This module introduces students who are already familiar with remote sensing and R to doing quantitative analyses with large spatial data sets. Students will explore different possible abiotic drivers of plant ...

Paleoclimate and Ocean Biogeochemistry
Allison Jacobel, Middlebury College
This module guides students through an examination of how surface ocean productivity relates to global climate on glacial-interglacial timescales and how the availability of ocean nutrients can be correlated with ...

Nutrient Loading Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D.N., T. Meixner, and C.A. Gibson. 6 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Nutrient Loading. Project EDDIE Module 7, Version 1. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Estimating nutrient loads is a critical concept for students studying water quality in a variety of environmental settings. Many STEM/Environmental science students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic activities on human water resources and/or ecosystems as part of their future careers. This module engages students in exploring factors contributing to the actual loads of nitrogen that are transmitted down streams. Nitrogen is a key water quality contaminant contributing to surface water quality issues in fresh, salt, and estuarine environments. Students will utilize real-time nitrate data from the US Geological Survey to calculate nitrate loads for several locations and investigate the interplay of concentration and discharge that contributes to calculated loads.

Nutrient Monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay
Akinyele Oni, Morgan State University; Niangoran Koissi, Morgan State University
The Chesapeake Bay waters receive input from rivers and streams from areas of Washington D.C, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and some parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Historically, humongous ...

Lake Mixing Module
This module was initially developed by Carey, C.C., J.L. Klug, and R.L. Fuller. 1 August 2015. Project EDDIE: Dynamics of Lake Mixing. Project EDDIE Module 3, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/lake-mixing.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Stratified lakes exhibit vertical gradients in organisms, nutrients, and oxygen, which have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning. Mixing disrupts these gradients by redistributing these ...

Cross-Scale Interactions
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Environmental phenomena are often driven by multiple factors that interact across different spatial and temporal scales. In freshwater lakes and reservoirs worldwide, phytoplankton blooms are increasing in ...

Water Quality Module
This module was initially developed by Castendyk, D. and Gibson, C. 30 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Water Quality. Project EDDIE Module 6, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/water-quality.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Water quality is a critical concept for undergraduate students studying Earth Sciences, Biology, and Environmental Sciences. Many of these students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic ...

Wind and Ocean Ecosystems
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University; April Watson, Lynn University
Wind has a fundamental impact on ocean ecosystems. Wind drives physical processes, including current development and upwelling through Ekman transport. These physical processes, in turn, have cascading impacts on ...

Biodiversity
Robin Collins, Champlain College
In this module, students will analyze data from the Florida Keys Reef Visual Census (FKRVS), a long-term monitoring effort of key reef fish populations in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Students will calculate the species richness as well as the Shannon index and Pielou's evenness index across different years of data and between different reef types. Furthermore, students will explore how years with high frequencies of hurricanes impact these measures. The module culminates with students writing a summary finding of how reef types and hurricane frequency will impact the FKRVS in the future.

Climate Drivers of Phenology
Emily Mohl, Saint Olaf College
Many species' life cycles are strongly influenced by temperature, but other cues, like day length and precipitation, can also trigger life cycle changes. Phenology is a way of recording the time when events, ...

Environmental Pollution & Public Health
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University
Environmental health is a field of study within public health that is concerned with human-environment interactions, and specifically, how the environment influences public well-being. In this module, students will explore how environmental pollution impacts public health through comparing cancer rates of areas with known environmental pollutants to the national average through a t-test. Students can further their knowledge by comparing the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants in areas with known sources to control sites without such sources. Project EDDIE modules are designed with an A-B-C structure to make them flexible and adaptable to a range of student levels and course structures.

Soil Respiration Module
This module was initially developed by Nave, L.E., N. Bader, and J.L. Klug. 25 June 2015. Project EDDIE: Soil Respiration. Project EDDIE Module 9, Version 1. cemast.illinoisstate.edu/data-for-students/modules/soil-respiration.shtml. Module development was supported by NSF DEB 1245707.
Soils hold more carbon (C) than any other component of the terrestrial biosphere! In this module, students will explore high-frequency, sensor-based datasets documenting climate variables and the emissions of C (as ...

Macro-Scale Feedbacks
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Kaitlin Farrell, University of Georgia
Environmental phenomena are often driven by multiple factors that interact across space and over time. In freshwater lakes and reservoirs worldwide, carbon cycling and subsequent carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane ...

Lake Metabolism Module
Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Different lakes exhibit a range of catchment sizes, morphometry, and land use that contribute to differences in lake function. These functional differences mean that lakes vary in ecosystem services such as habitat ...

Biomes, Vegetation Structure, and Canopy Height
Mary Mulcahy, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford
Students will develop a concept of vegetation structure and biomes through an exploration of field site data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) project. Students will compare characteristics of major groups of plants with respect to heat and drought tolerance, develop hypotheses for how canopy height may vary by several abiotic factors, and evaluate their hypotheses using graphed data, trendlines and r-squared values.

Prairie Eco Services
Kelly Knight, Houston Community College System
As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water ...

Understanding Uncertainty in Ecological Forecasts
Tadhg Moore, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Mary Lofton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Quinn Thomas, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Ecological forecasting is a tool that can be used for understanding and predicting changes in populations, communities, and ecosystems. Ecological forecasting is an emerging approach which provides an estimate of ...

Using Data to Improve Ecological Forecasts
Mary Lofton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Tadhg Moore, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Quinn Thomas, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
How can we use data to improve ecological forecasts? To be useful for management, ecological forecasts need to be both accurate enough for managers to be able to rely on them for decision-making and include a ...

How Do We Measure Biodiversity: Exploring Biodiversity Metrics Using Avian Communities
Jeffrey Brown, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
This activity is designed to illustrate various ways that biodiversity can be measured and to highlight what we can learn about an ecological community from different metrics. Students will explore biodiversity metrics (i.e., species richness and Shannon diversity) using point count data on birds collected from the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research program. Specifically, students will investigate how bird richness and abundance have changed over time and create figures to compare abundance across landscapes and time.

Exploring diatom biodiversity in the Everglades and Caribbean wetlands
Katherine Johnson, Florida International University; Gabriel Kamener, Florida International University
Water quality assessments frequently include biological indicators to evaluate aquatic ecosystem habitat type and health. Because diatoms are ubiquitous and are found in habitats where macroinvertebrates are not, ...

Exploring the relationship between periphyton and water quality in karstic wetlands
Gabriel Kamener, Florida International University; Katherine Johnson, Florida International University
Physicochemical properties and nutrients drive aquatic processes that sustain biota. Therefore, aquatic assessments usually investigate these variables as well as biological indicators to gain a better ...

Tracking hot spots and hot moments in an urban freshwater estuary
Gaston Small, University of St. Thomas (MN)
This module explores the hydrology and biogeochemistry of the St. Louis River Estuary (Duluth, Minnesota). The overarching question of the module is: when, and where, is the estuary acting as a source vs. a sink ...

Introduction to Ecological Forecasting
Tadhg Moore, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Mary Lofton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Quinn Thomas, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Ecological forecasting is a tool that can be used for understanding and predicting changes in populations, communities, and ecosystems. Ecological forecasting is an emerging approach which provides an estimate of ...

Phenology Trends and Climate Change in Minnesota
Pamela Freeman, The College of Saint Scholastica
Seasonal events, for example flowering, fruiting, and the return of migrating birds, happen at particular times of the year. Some of these events happen in relation to climate, while others are dependent on other ...

Using High-Frequency Data to Manage Water Quality
Mary Lofton, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Cayelan Carey, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
In recent decades, there have been substantial improvements in our ability to monitor water quality in real time using sensors that measure variables at a high frequency (every few minutes). In this module, ...