A new process for creating Online Content for Experiential Learning of Tropical Systems: The OCELOTS network

Background/Question/Methods

Life science undergraduates face solving ‘wicked’ problems, i.e., complex ones without clear solutions. This requires higher-level thinking about connections across scales and disciplines, and within a global context. Tropical ecology can provide such skills through study of organisms, their interactions in highly diverse communities and ecosystems, and human factors that shape conservation of tropical species and solutions for global ecological issues. Nevertheless, most core undergraduate biology curricula focus primarily on temperate zones, with limited exposure to global contexts—even more limited since the global pandemic. Agile, easily accessible online open educational resources (OERs) that immerse learners in real-world research sites are thus urgently needed. A new network, OCELOTS, brings together a diverse community of tropical ecology researchers, active-learning pedagogy, interactive data tools, and multimedia content creation. Our common goal is to create research-based modules in tropical ecology, hosted on a responsively designed, open-source and open-access platform, Gala (www.learngala.com). The question is how to create a process that enables researchers with no prior programming experience to create engaging, research-based OERs, and to collaborate with undergraduates in data sciences on new features for data learning, multilingual content, and novel uses of interactive media. Here we summarize our progress, and invite other contributors.

Results/Conclusions

To begin developing, evaluating and refining the OER production process, OCELOTS participants prototyped several modules, now being piloted in classrooms: 1) ‘Snapshot Serengeti Online Lab’ (Willis, Klemens): This multi-week inquiry lets students explore African wildlife ecology by interactively analyzing camera trap data. (https://www.learngala.com/cases/5c7e397e-b22e-478f-94f7-02d677bb11ea). 2) ‘Restoring tropical forests’ (Holl, Zahawi): This tropical forest restoration case study in Costa Rica lets students interpret bar graphs, use R Shiny to visualize seed rain in different restoration treatments, and learn about social obstacles to restoration (https://www.learngala.com/cases/restoring-tropical-forests). 3) ‘Sounds of the tropics’ (Aide, May-Collado, Campos-Cerqueira). This three-part series begins with understandings of recorded wildlife sounds, then shows how such auditory data can serve ecological and conservation studies (https://www.learngala.com/cases/sounds-of-the-tropics-part-1). 4) ‘Healing the Scars: Tropical rainforest carbon cycling – Does it matter which tree species you plant?’ (Russell). A long-term field experiment in Costa Rica connects the dots about how carbon cycling traits of species at the whole-plant level translate into global-level effects. (https://www.learngala.com/cases/tropical-rainforest-carbon-cycling). Module authors found Gala to be intuitive and user-friendly. Their experiences are informing new guidelines for active/inclusive teaching, the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education framework, and media incorporation. Engaging undergraduates in data sciences improved modules and resulted in software advances while promoting young developer talent.