Plants in a Human-Altered Environment (PHAE) Project: Students investigating the local importance of woody plants through independent hypotheses and collaborative data

Background/Question/Methods

Even prior to COVID-19, ecology students lived in a diverse array of learning environments that became even more varied due to the pandemic, forcing many students to engage in remote learning, often far from their instructor and physical campus. Instructors were challenged to get their students to practice the scientific process and learn relevant technologies, field skills, and data science. With support from the National Science Foundation, Ecological Research as Education Network (EREN) faculty and National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) staff utilized NEON protocols and/or data in the EREN collaborative model to co-develop a set of Flexible Learning Projects (FLPs) for ecology instructors to help their students explore their learning environments, whether students were remote or on-campus. The Plants in the Human-Altered Environment (PHAE) project was developed to encourage students to engage with and investigate woody plants near their location. PHAE is divided into modules to increase implementation flexibility. The beginning modules build the foundation for a basic understanding of landscape structure and ecosystem services. This foundation leads students to the overall research objective for PHAE, specifically quantifying the importance of woody plants as related to human-altered viewsheds and impervious surface area.

Results/Conclusions

While following the prescribed PHAE methodology, students were able to work independently and in groups, whether in-person, HyFlex, or fully remote, to generate their own hypotheses; develop a research plan; identify their research site and plot; collect and contribute their data to a shared GoogleSheet that contains data from all other sites and institutions; and then visualize and analyze the combined data in context of their own hypotheses. Utilizing high-impact practices (HIPs) of collaborative work and undergraduate research that address all four elements of the 4DEE framework, PHAE provides flexibility for ecology students to engage in the scientific process with authentic data to test their own hypotheses while using a standardized methodology that contributes useful data to address the overall project objectives. In addition, students gain a suite of ecology skills, such as identifying and locating plots using remote technology; identifying, mapping, and measuring tree diameter and height; and entering, visualizing, and analyzing data. Broadly, students increase awareness of biological limitations of plant growth in urbanizing landscapes and the importance of woody plants in their environment.