Project Investigator(s): Bridgette Clarkston, Instructor, Botany
Project Description
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum (BBM) is home to UBC’s biological research collections and contains over two million specimens—a wealth of potential for teaching and research projects. However, most courses in the Biology Program do not use the Museum and those that do interact mostly with the public displays. This project focuses on first-year students and is the first in a new initiative to integrate collections-based research experiences into Biology Program courses using the BBM. The overarching question here is: can we provide meaningful and relevant lessons in a first-year undergraduate course that simultaneously contribute to Beaty Biodiversity Museum research?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
The PI is a recently-appointed teaching stream faculty whose designated educational leadership is to integrate the Beaty Biodiversity Museum into the Biology Program, so this endeavor is sustainable with regard to faculty support. In addition, the BBM houses over two million specimens that are relevant to over a dozen of the Biology Program courses. A goal of this SoTL project is to improve the PI’s ability to assess student experiences and this improved understanding will transfer to other teaching-related projects that collaborate with the BBM.
Achieved Outcomes
Students from both the online and in-person activity were most interested in and surprised by the level of variation between specimens of the same species, the age and high-quality preservation of museum specimens, and how museum specimens are prepared and organized. Preliminary survey analysis suggests that students find the online and in-person activity to be similarly useful and interesting.