It is not difficult to observe the ease and pace at which misinformation regarding environmental issues enters the public through various fast-paced media outlets. Thus, the need to promote critical-thinking and incorporate science literacy into undergraduate STEM curricula may be considered paramount. However, science students are not typically introduced to the rigorous processes of experimental design, data analysis, and peer-review until their educations begin to specialize more as juniors, seniors, or graduate students. It is valuable to engage STEM students with diverse academic goals, and educational and cultural backgrounds, in the overall process of science before they specialize in their chosen majors. In this context, why not expose students, who otherwise may never deeply ponder the links between human activities and ecological change, to some basic ecological research? We argue this has the dual benefit of broadly increasing scientific literacy while also helping to build a framework for better understanding socio-environmental connections. Our undergraduate research program, at an urban two-year community college, immerses student-interns from diverse backgrounds into publication-quality ecological research. When interns eventually major in various STEM fields, they go with a deeper appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems and a better toolkit for evaluating and communicating scientific information.
Results/Conclusions
Monitoring the bee community is a logistically and economically sustainable project as it requires minimal specialized training and equipment. Student-interns have collected bees from snow-melt until a zero-bee sampling event over three years (2016-2018), identifying 7,684 bees to genus (corroborated by an expert taxonomist). Student-interns discuss primary research articles related to pollinator research in a graduate-style journal club. Building on prior work and using their own creativity, they formulate and address questions from within our extensive data set. Using this model, eight interns have presented posters at national ESA meetings, nine more with current abstract submissions. They also engage the community presenting at elementary schools, community centers, and garden clubs. We have employed 64 student interns since 2016, with greater than 75% either transferring successfully to four-year colleges, starting a STEM career, or still in the internship. Interns reflect the demographics of our college being greater than 50% minority, including self-identifying African-Americans, Cape Verdeans, Haitians, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans. While many of our interns seek biology BS degrees ranging from molecular- to ecology-focused, some are also pursuing engineering, psychology, and pre-med pathways. These student-interns will carry this eco-centric, data-driven perspective with them regardless of the career path they follow.