Moravian University's Diane Husic

Husic Awarded NSF Grant

Diane Husic, dean of the school of natural and health sciences at Moravian University, is the co-principal investigator (co-PI) on a newly awarded grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Undergraduate Biology Education Division entitled 3dNaturalists bioblitzes, citizen science, and undergraduate learning. Other co-PIs include Gillian Bowser and John Moore from Colorado State, Anna Monfils from Central Michigan University and Teresa Mourad of the Ecological Society of America. Other steering committee members include representatives from the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), the University of Arizona, the Esri Education Team, the Reserva Ecological Bijagual in Costa Rica and the University of Queensland.

The grant allows us to explore whether participation in citizen science events such as BioBlitzes or pollinator-host plant surveys in parks (from urban settings to our National Parks) generate interest in youth for the environmental sciences. We want to examine the following questions:

  • Which of the elements of the informal experience are most important to foster or constrain student learning?
  • Can data obtained from such events be used to both address societal issues (i.e. the lack of diversity in environmental sciences, the NPS, or in conservation) and train undergraduate students in science?
  • Is citizen science data robust enough to be used to address large-scale relevant issues such as climate change?
  • Can smartphone technology, social media apps, and crowdsourcing through the internet be effective gateways to engage new groups in ecological science, including students from traditionally underrepresented groups.

This Research Coordination Network grant will support four workshops around the country and in Costa Rica, the fourth of which, on citizen science and knowledge transfer, will be hosted by Moravian University. The idea for this grant originated at a Gordon Conference on Research in Biology Education in Maine in August 2015.

Husic met Bowser at the U.N. Climate Conferences several years ago and the two are board members and faculty for the Rocky Mountain Science and Sustainability Network (RMSSN), which runs 10-day citizen science and park sustainability academies for undergraduate students in the Rockies, including Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. In May 2016, the RMSSN team helped the scientists at Yellowstone establish permanent transects (survey areas) and protocols across elevation gradients through the park for monitoring the impact of climate change on pollinator-plant relationships and to set up photo-point locations in the park to digitally document landscape changes over time. Students and faculty from RMSSN were invited to present this work at the 13th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which had as its theme “Building on the Past, Leading into the Future: Sustaining the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the Coming Century” (October 4-6, 2016 at Jackson Lake Lodge).