2015 Conference

Poster Presentation

To evaluate environmental information, students must understand the research process - how research addresses environmental topics, formulates questions, and obtains data to answer the question.   We immerse students directly into the research process in a first-year/sophomore-level course, Environmental Research Methods. Students become enmeshed in the research experience, wherein the major topic may be known, the specific question to be addressed is not yet determined, the methods are unclear, and the answer is unknown.   

The course consists of two class-based research projects, one in natural science and the other in social science.  Projects, selected to be of relevance on the college campus or in the community, address questions for which the answers are unknown.   With the professor as a guide, students refine a question, develop the experimental design, select appropriate methods, and collect, analyze, and present data. 

Projects in the course have included quantification of water bottle use on campus, attitudes toward bee hives on campus or in the community, assessment of rooting depth of local native plants, campus attitudes on forest management, and productivity of biofuel alternatives. 

Most students find the course challenging.  They can find it difficult to articulate a focused question, tedious to make numerous decisions needed to focus the work, and even boring when data collection requires repetitive work that must be accomplished with attention to detail.  Despite frustrations, students express their satisfaction in being involved in “real research” that is meaningful to them and valuable to others.  They express fulfillment in being in charge of the project, making decisions, and in discovering something (even at a small scale) that was not known previously.  Students report satisfaction in presenting their results to campus or local community leaders who have a stake in the project.  We find that students obtain confidence that benefits junior and senior year projects.