Description

Project Website

This project will implement the new San Francisco Bay Research Coordination Network for Student Opportunities in Avian Research (SOAR) composed of investigators from four universities, two community colleges, a museum, and three non-governmental organizations. SOAR coalesces a cadre of experts in research, teaching, and outreach, with a focus in ornithology. Most participants had not worked together prior to the incubator phase of this project, which demonstrated the power of the new collaborations. The program will fulfill two goals: (1) introduce undergraduate students, especially those from underserved communities, to STEM activities in both the field and laboratory through the lens of ornithology; and (2) study the spatio-temporal dynamics of bird populations in an important region within the Pacific Flyway, the South San Francisco Bay.

This project will advance biology education through providing innovative opportunities for hands-on field research and follow-up lab activities for students who presently have limited or no access to such experiential learning. In the urban environment that characterizes the South San Francisco Bay area, and especially for the economically-disadvantaged learners we intend to attract into the program, biology students have few opportunities to learn natural history, ecology and conservation science through hands-on field-based activities. The field component of our proposed program will immerse participants in two nature enclaves in the midst of highly-urbanized Silicon Valley: Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (JRBP) in Woodside, CA, and the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory’s Coyote Creek Field Station (CCFS) in San Jose, CA. We will also utilize additional conservation lands managed by Stanford University. In these field settings, educators from the SOAR RCN network will be able to expose students to biological research and conservation practices, including identifying and sampling banded birds, an enriching experience that provides an exceptional “hook” into understanding how biological systems work in the real world and into personal discovery. Collaborative follow-up activities in the laboratory will include analyses of student-generated field data augmented by more than three decades of bird-census data available from JRBP and CCFS, as well as exposure to the scientific method and cutting-edge analytical techniques such as genome sequencing and GIS tools. In addition to the educational goals, the research the students will do with faculty will help reveal how both global and local pressures are affecting the migration and population dynamics of the more than 200 bird species that rely on this important sector of the Pacific Flyway, and how to maintain the flyway’s ecological health.

SOAR will bring together intellectual and material resources from the participating institutions and volunteers from surrounding communities to better serve the multicultural and economically disparate constituents of the region, particularly in building capacity to demonstrate the need, value, and opportunities for career paths in environmental sciences. Exposure to these opportunities is essential for effective planetary stewardship, given ongoing global changes. Active participation of all parties involved will in part be accomplished through tiered mentoring approaches, which will not only train students in crucial STEM-related problem solving, but also train all participants in communication across a spectrum of age-groups, identities, and backgrounds, a skill that has become essential for solving both local and global problems. From a scientific conservation research perspective, the field sites are key stopovers for neotropical and temperate migrant bird species that utilize the Pacific Flyway. Thus, the data gathered in this project will be essential in monitoring the overall health of the flyway, the specific habitats within Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and Coyote Creek Field Station, and the multitude of bird species involved in the Pacific Flyway. The permanent positions of the investigators in their respective institutions ensures that the experience derived from this RCN can be applied over the long term, beyond the life of this project, an important aspect to achieve more effective broad impacts.

Ways to learn more:

• Read the news of the NSF grant from Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve

Ways to get involved:

• Check out the SOAR Network website
• Check out the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory website

If you are interested in learning more and participating please join this group or email Lynne Trulio.

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