Educator Innovations - Amazonian Educational Booklet features Macroinvertebrates.org Images9/19/2020
Giovanna Ferreira, a student of biological sciences at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), located in Belém-Pará- Brazil is creating an educational booklet about fish and insects in Amazonian streams to be printed and distributed in schools in the region. The booklet will include source images Macroinvertebrates.org showing genus Helicopsyche and Calopteryx.
-- For more information on the publication contact: Giovanna Teixeira Ferreira Graduanda de Licenciatura em Ciências Biológicas- Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) Instituto de Ciências Biológica (ICB) Bolsista de Iniciação Científica pelo Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação (LABECO) https://comunicalabeco.wixsite.com/labecoufpa ID Lattes: 5784910442761295 ID ORCID: 0000-0002-8432-1092 by Pat McShea, Program Officer: Education, Carnegie Museum of Natural History This spring’s Creek Connections Student Research Symposium at Allegheny College was a good showcase for Learning to See, Seeing to Learn. The April 5 event drew students from more than twenty high schools and middle schools in western Pennsylvania and western New York to the Campus Center building of the Meadville college for a five-hour program of research presentations, interactive displays, focus group activities, and an awards ceremony. (See: https://sites.allegheny.edu/creekconnections/ )
As an educator representing Carnegie Museum of Natural History, I spent the day promoting the macroinvertebrates website at a table that was part of a larger resource fair in the Campus Center lobby. The table displayed two iPads for visitors to explore the site, a set of macros embedded in Lucite cubes, a traditional Riker mount of pond macros, a field microscope, and a stack of promotional postcards. During the course of the symposium I spoke with, and handed-out postcards to approximately 100 people, a mix of middle school and high school students presenting their projects, the teachers of those students, Allegheny College students and faculty, and representatives of other organizations participating in the symposium, including the University of Pittsburgh’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, French Creek Valley Conservancy, PA Lake Management Society, PA Bureau of Forestry (Department of Conservation and Natural Resources), and the Crawford County Conservation District. Some table visitors were particularly impressed by set-ups on the paired iPads -- one screen fully zoomed-in on the abstract art-like image on the “setal fan on a proleg” of a net-spinning caddisfly, the other featuring a whole-body image of the tiny beast. by Helen Schlimm, Community Science Specialist, Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) Macroinvertebrate samples are a great learning tool for all ages!
Recently, the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, used CMU’s lucite macro samples and the macroinvertebrates.org website for two awesome educational experiences. ALLARM taught a short course on PA Streams at a local library with the Institute for Lifelong Learning program. The macro samples were the highlight of the final class (stream health 101), where participants identified the bugs under a microscope and used the site on the screen to see high quality pictures and make better determinations. People were amazed to see the diversity of bugs that could be found in their streams! The macro samples were a big hit at our second event, the finale of the Conodoguinet Creek Snapshot monitoring series. Volunteers throughout the Conodoguinet watershed in Cumberland County sampled water quality and came to ALLARM’s space to test their water and engage in hands-on watershed education activities. The macroinvertebrates and microscopes featured prominently, and participants of all ages enjoyed identifying the macros and learning about the role they play in watershed health. The samples and the website are fantastic tools for community engagement and education, and everyone had lots of fun exploring them as well! by Tara Muenz, Stroud Water Research Center Stroud Center Educators presented once again on the alpha site, this time at the 47th North American Association for Environmental Education Annual Conference (NAAEE) in Spokane, Washington. In attendance were over 1,200 educators from across the globe, merging together on the theme of ‘EE a Force for the Future.’ Our reveal of the alpha site first occurred at the ‘Share Fair’ where attendees could interact with our education staff about education programming and learn about tools to promote stewardship and knowledge of fresh water. Attendees were able to cruise through the alpha site at our table and were encouraged to attend our upcoming presentation. We heard many ‘oohs and ahhs’ when seeing the site with encouraging remarks already how this site will enhance their role as educators when connecting students to the world of aquatic macroinvertebrates. Tara Muenz, Stroud's Assistant Director of Education with support from Steve Kerlin gave a 45-minute presentation and teaser on the alpha site to over 30 conference attendees. This hands-on presentation demonstrated not only the capabilities of this incredible site, but also engaged the audience in a conversation on tips for training and learning the how to identify macroinvertebrates with audiences coming from diverse backgrounds. We also revealed forthcoming training support and activities such as the ‘ID FOCUS WORKSHEETS’ which are meant to do just that, FOCUS! Starting with morphology (Tip # 1), we dove deep into the world of Trichoptera (Caddisfly Order) and focused on the Hydropsychidae Family (“water-spirit”) with a simple new activity you can do with students or volunteers and which gets them started in ID with caddisflies. We shared the list of the materials needed: We are also starting to develop as a set of training supports using site imagery, a tool that we call ‘ID FOCUS SHEETS’ which guide noticing and point to key characters on the morphology of an Order (and Family, in this case). Attendees also learned of super cool tools to come (i.e. Family-level ID cards and practice tests).
At the end of our presentation we asked for feedback and got many thumbs up! One teacher from South Carolina said ‘This is a game-changer! Combined with live insects, ID cards, and keys, this will revolutionize the way students learn, it’s incredible.’ One attendee who works with mosquitos in Florida was inspired in many ways to use the site when teaching students of all ages about mosquitos and is eager to make some ID sheets on this Family of Culicidae (mosquitos)! The presentation generated excitement, and educators left feeling more empowered and able to support ID work. They loved the ID Focus sheets, the cards, and the clear guidance and structure to learning and teaching. What’s next for the Stroud Center team? Time to create more of the Focus sheets, get them into the hands of others to use, and oh right, another presentation! We’ll see you in Montana next week at the 2018 MEA-MFT Educator Conference where we’ll be presenting on another NSF grant focused on the Net-spinning Caddisfly and, you guessed it, showing the new macroinvertebrates.org site! By Tara Muenz, Stroud Water Research Center Last winter we found a new use for the amazingly detailed imagery on macroinvertebrates.org. One of our Stroud Center educators and retired science teacher, Vince O’Donnell, realized students could benefit from 3D models of macroinvertebrates as teaching tools. Since none existed, we helped a team of high school engineering and art students create some! Check out our article in County Lines Magazine describing how we used macroinvertebrates.org to point out finer details of the taxa they were creating so the designers knew exactly what the characteristic looked like (e.g. wing pads on a mayfly, antennae structure of a stonefly, how the legs are poised, etc.). It was extremely helpful to be able to zoom into the character of the taxa and show students exactly how they needed to alter their 3D design model.
The project was a great success, and we are continuing to work with students to create more models this year! |
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