Increased access to natural history collections data through digitization has the potential to transform the undergraduate ecology and evolution classroom. It creates new opportunities for students at undergraduate institutions with limited or no access to physical specimens to complete research projects on topics such as climate change and biogeography that often require large historical and geographic datasets. Incorporating original research on ecology and evolution into the undergraduate classroom can also be challenging due to seasonal, geographic and time constraints. Using digitized natural history collections is a solution to many of these limitations. Through a Natural History Collections course at Widener University, students are engaging in collaborative research projects with Widener faculty and Delaware Museum of Natural History (DMNH) curators. Student teams design and execute original research projects incorporating digitized natural history collections data publically available through iDigBio, VertNet, InvertEBase, and other online data portals to answer questions on ecology and evolutionary biology topics.
Results/Conclusions
Student projects incorporated both digitized specimen data collected from natural history database portals and physical specimens. The ability of the students to design experiments based on their individual interests was greatly enhanced by the wide range of collections data publicly available. Students developed their science communication skills for science and non-science audiences through writing a final research paper, designing a museum display suitable for a non-science mixed-age audience, and writing guest blog posts for the DMNH website. Collaboration between students, faculty and curators yielded projects with strong experimental design, large rigorously edited “big data” sets compiled from multiple sources, and sophisticated analysis. Digitized natural history collections are invaluable resources for any ecology and evolution course, and student experiences are enhanced by collaborative experiences that bridge between scientific institutions.