Creating authentic learning experiences that benefit undergraduate students and land management agencies

Background/Question/Methods

State and federal land management agencies collect large amounts of monitoring data on a range of ecologically important species and habitats. Typically, general information is obtained from these ecological monitoring studies but underlying patterns and important interactions are not fully explored. Ecology undergraduate students can provide a great service to these agencies by mining these data to learn more about the ecology of these species and habitats. At the same time the undergraduate students gain an authentic learning experiences that contributes to our ecological understanding. I present an example of undergraduate students from Gonzaga University in a conservation biology class utilizing a 36-year data set on bald eagle counts on Lake Coeur d’Alene in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1974, just two years after the ban on DDT, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Northern Idaho has counted migrating bald eagles every winter. Students visited the bald eagle survey sites on a field trip with a former BLM employee who collected much of the data. In a two-week lab setting students propose hypotheses, sift through the monitoring data sheets, gather additional data as needed, and analyze their data.

Results/Conclusions

Student reports were written and shared with the BLM Coeur d’Alene Field Office. Important insights have been gained on our understanding of the ecology of bald eagles in relation to temperature, food supply, human traffic pressures and site characteristics. This authentic ecological learning experience provides students with an opportunity to discover ecological patterns in these monitoring studies and to share this information with the land management agencies.