It is an exciting time to be an ecologist; emerging technology allows us to collect data we never thought possible. The urgency of the issues that ecologists are addressing adds to this excitement. These issues are complex and multidimensional and require multidisciplinary teams to find solutions. As educators, this complexity raises an important question: How do we train future ecologists (and the faculty that teach them) to work in multidisciplinary teams to do just that? Part of the solution is the development of multidisciplinary courses that focus on these complex issues. We describe efforts by faculty from a variety of departments who team-teach in an academic Makerspace, both in person and using telepresence. Our course focuses on using Unmanned Systems (i.e. “drones”) to develop new technical solutions for applied conservation issues. Faculty from biology, industrial design, robotics, and communications develop shared, fundamental learning objectives and the arc of the course makes explicit parallels between the scientific method and design thinking. We partner with industry experts, researchers, and conservation organizations and undertake applied research projects as a way to train students and faculty to work across fields to solve complex ecological problems.
Results/Conclusions
After three iterations of the Unmanned Systems class since 2015, the core faculty have increasingly refined and scaled the complex pedagogy, number of partners, and depth of scientific results. The most recent course included 65 students, 10 student projects, six academic faculty, two universities (James Madison & Old Dominion), three conservation partners (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, and Blue Ridge PRISM), and three faculty research projects. Student research and learning outcomes have improved based on qualitative content analysis and quantitative assessment (survey and network analysis) metrics. Through each iteration students have progressed further in the research and application of novel Unmanned System solutions.