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    Module 3: What on Earth is a Herbarium?
    The goal of this activity is to introduce students to herbarium specimens and why they are an important source of information. The emphasis of this activity is on examining the types of data that...

    Keywords: natural history collectionsherbariumHerbarium digitizationYnez Mexia

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    A Customizable Inquiry-Based Statistics Teaching Application for Introductory Biology Students
    Building strong quantitative skills prepares undergraduate biology students for successful careers in science and medicine. While math and statistics anxiety can negatively impact student learning...

    Keywords: introductory biologyQuantitative reasoningInclusive teachingauthentic inquiryInferential statisticsInstructional scaffolding

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    Module 1: Discovering Your Family's “Botanical History.”
    We all know that understanding family history is important to understanding our place in the world. To help students learn to appreciate plants, this activity will connect family memories to...

    Keywords: botanyherbariumPlant awareness disparityfamily history

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    Module 2: Opening Your Eyes to the Diversity of Plants
    This activity picks up from Module 1 where students chose the plant they wanted to represent their botanical history. In that module, they each identified their plant’s family and were given its...

    Keywords: botanyPlant diversityLand plantsembryophytes

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    Marsh Madness: Using Video Games and a Case Study to Explore Food Webs and Ecosystem Services in Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve
    As the complexity and interconnectedness of our world increases, we are continually expected to be capable of complex, non-linear thinking in order to successfully tackle and solve the challenges...

    Keywords: food webssystems thinkingGame Based LearningEcosystem Servicessocio-ecological networks

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    Between a rock and a hard place. What can turning rocks tell us about land-use change impacts on animals living in a rock outcrop?
    Unique rock outcrops in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot in India provide a setting that challenges students to develop a study to assess the impact of land-use change on threatened animals...

    Keywords: conservationagricultureland useamphibianstropicalbiodiversity losslateritic outcropopen natural ecosystemsreptilesrocks

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    Constructing Phylogenies using Herbarium Specimens
    This lab is intended as an introduction to a plant systematics course. Students work in groups of two to apply what they have learned about plant structures to develop a character matrix based on a...

    Keywords: botanyphylogenyherbariumdistance learningPlant systematicscharacter matrix

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    Is everything bigger in Texas? Introduction to Statistics with the Rock Pocket Mouse (Chaetodipus intermedius)
    Natural history museums often contain large collections of the same species and therefore, are a resource for studying intraspecific variation. This module uses 172 images of rock pocket mouse...

    Keywords: statisticsnatural history museumsdistance learningStudy Designintraspecific variation

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    Observing the Birds of El Paso: Revisiting historical localities online and in the field
    In this set of activities, students are introduced to several features and use cases of museum databases to understand the importance of historical natural history specimens and their data. Using...

    Keywords: databaseBiodiversityOrnithologynatural history museumsspecies distributionsdistance learningField Experiences

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    Introduction to Assessing Biodiversity: Bivalves of the Rio Grande Area
    Learning to identify taxa is a key skill gained in many systematics classes. This module aims to introduce students to concepts and resources for identifying organisms and assessing species...

    Keywords: Biodiversityspecies distributionsdistance learninginvertebrate zoologyMuseum databases data literacyidentification

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    Introduction to Plant Phenology with Museum Specimens of Desert Prickly Pear (Opuntia phaeacantha)
    Students engage in hands-on exploration of phenology by working with digitized herbarium specimens, particularly focusing on prickly pear specimens from the UTEP herbarium. They learn to identify...

    Keywords: botanyclimate changephenologyherbariumcactus

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    Rescuing Data: Preserving Data for the Future
    Meet Diane Srivastava, director of the Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution, and learn how they sythesize and save biodiversity data.

    Keywords: metadatadigital datadata skillsBiodiversity Science

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    Sorting through the Data
    Meet Thomas McElrath, a insect collection manager at the Illinois Natural History Survey and beetle researcher. Tommy explains the value of data standards while discussing beetles and variations...

    Keywords: data standardssexdata skillsBiodiversity data usage

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    Mapping New Discoveries: iNaturalist and Biodiversity Data
    Meet Lauren Esposito, the Curator of Arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences. Learn how they use community science to inform new species discovery.

    Keywords: endangered species#iNaturalistBiodiversity data usage

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    Mysterious Occurrences Instructors Notes
    Answer Key associated with Mysterious Occurrences Module

    Keywords: digital resourcesBiodiversityconservation sciencePlant Resilience

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    The Power of Place: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Studying Urban Ecology, Local Apple Trees and Disease Susceptibility
    Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) offered early in an undergraduate student’s career have the potential to include a greater number and diversity of students than...

    Keywords: Disease ecologyurban ecologyUrban food forestsUrban heat islandsGenetic resistance

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    Snail Races: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Learn Invasive Species Ecology
    Inquiry-based lessons allow learning that is hands-on and student-driven, fostering engagement and retention of knowledge in any discipline. Here, we use this learning framework to engage students...

    Keywords: ecologyenvironmentInvasive SpeciesScience CommunicationScientific InquiryDispersal

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    A CURE in traits and species distributions: Reproductive modes, range sizes, and natural history collections
    This course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) focuses on developing hypotheses about how traits influence the range sizes of species. Topics with substantive content include symbioses,...

    Keywords: Evolutionbiostatisticsecologynatural history collectionsSymbiosisspecies distributionsherbariumplant functional traitsLichenReproductive biologyAppalachian mountains

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    Outside the Norm: Using Public Ecology Database Information to Teach Biostatistics
    Biology students’ understanding of statistics is incomplete due to poor integration of these two disciplines. In some cases, students fail to learn statistics at the undergraduate level due...

    Keywords: biostatisticshypothesis testingexperimental design

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    Drawing “Octo-Pines”: Ice-Breaker Active-Learning Activities to Introduce Drawing-to-Learn in Biology
    Drawing has been advocated as a technique to develop visual literacy and observational skills in biology students. To increase student motivation and confidence to draw in our course, we developed...

    Keywords: Zoologydrawingdrawing-to-learnice breaker

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