The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the landscape of science education in the same way that it altered most professional endeavors, by pushing everything into the virtual space. While the transition to Zoom may have been relatively seamless for folks who worked with spreadsheets and documents, it was a substantially more challenging transition for those of us who worked outside, in natural spaces. This past summer, I collaborated with the Phipps Conservatory’s outreach and education department to develop a two-day lesson on Urban Biodiversity for their youth summer camp program. I originally pitched the idea for the workshop in the Fall of 2019, before the world shut down. I had grand plans of taking campers on hikes through the woods of Pittsburgh, collecting plant specimens, building a class herbarium, and conducting a science experiment. Those plans had to change, however, when the Phipps Conservatory made the obvious decision to host their summer camp on Zoom to protect everyone’s health. Suddenly, the education team and myself was faced with the challenge of teaching elementary-school students about urban forest biodiversity, without being able to set foot outside. Our first task was to change the herbarium activity so that it could be completed at home. Instead of collecting wildflowers from the forest trails around Phipps and using museum-quality supplies to press and mount plants specimens, we asked campers to collect plants in and around their house and press them with paper towels and heavy books. They got creative with it, adding everything from vase flowers to dandelions to garden herbs! Their herbaria may not have included the wild plant specimens I had originally envisioned, but our campers still got to learn about the huge diversity of species that lived around them. The next, larger challenge, was to adapt a hands-on science experiment to the virtual world. We explored the question “How does the biodiversity differ between forested and unforested urban habitats?” Once again, we asked the campers to find plants, animals, and insects living in and around their homes, then compile a list of species and report it back to the group. We were concerned that there’d be no easy way to help students identify species without an experienced naturalist in the room…. so we turned to iNaturalist, a citizen science app, for help! The iNaturalist app uses machine learning to identify species from phone images. As a result, the campers had their very own expert assistant on hand, to help them to identify species, collect data, and look for patterns with their classmates. The summer camp workshop ended up being entirely different from what I had imagined, but just as successful as if it had been held in-person. The silver lining was that we were able to host campers from outside of Pittsburgh proper, who otherwise would have lived too far away from the Phipps Conservatory to attend. We also were able to accommodate a wider variety of learning styles and activity levels. Some campers loved to be on camera and ask questions, while others felt more comfortable with their cameras turned off and used the chatroom to interact with the group. Sure, I would have loved to provide a “quintessential” camp experience, with hikes and team-building games and packed lunches, but that can be saved for next summer. This summer, I was grateful to have been able to share my love of urban ecology with a group of smart and curious campers... while dressed in my comfiest pajama pants. |
AuthorHello! My name is Rachel and I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. All opinions expressed in this blog are my own. Archives
April 2024
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