Presentation by: Bridgette Clarkston, Pam Kalas
Session: C | Time: 10:05AM – 10:45AM | Location: Room 206
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum (BBM) is home to UBC’s biological research collections and hosts over two million specimens-a wealth of potential for teaching and research projects. However, most courses in the UBC Biology Program do not use the Museum as a teaching and learning resource and those that do interact mostly with the public displays. This project focuses on first-year students and is the first in a new initiative to integrate collections-based research experiences into Biology Program courses using the BBM’s research collections. The overarching research question explored here is: what is the impact of a hands-on, open-ended activity in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on first-year students’ knowledge, interests and perceptions of biological diversity and natural history museums? To date, this project has involved two first year courses: SCIE 001 and BIOL 121. Student responses to written questions were collected via a survey given prior to and after students completed an activity at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Results suggest that students benefited from interacting with authentic research collections as indicated from the number of comments students made about variation in biological diversity and how much effort goes into organizing and curating research specimens. Additionally, our results indicate that a relatively short activity (one 2-hr session) was enough to see an impact. Participants will discuss the results and implications of this project and what aspects of an authentic research experience it contains, as well as discuss their own experiences with or ideas for teaching-as-research collaborations between UBC courses and community partners.
Abstract: 601