Developing Data Literacy Skills and Connecting the Student Experience in the Classroom to the Community Through Biodiversity Projects

Undergraduate education and long-term science literacy are enhanced by integrating data projects with public datasets and creating analysis summaries. Underutilized public datasets are often generated by community-based or citizen science projects to address conservation issues supported by local residents. The objectives of this course activity are for students to contribute to a community science project, observe local species diversity, develop biodiversity questions, and apply data science techniques. Engaging students in these local projects enhances their understanding of the scientific process and its broader impacts on their community. The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is an annual global community science event where students participate by documenting species observations with the iNaturalist application, similar to localized BioBlitz events. Students are guided through using the iNaturalist database to practice biodiversity calculations then data is collected through participation in CNC (or a BioBlitz event an instructor arranges for their class). Spreadsheet software is used by students to organize, analyze, and summarize their relevant data to their peers. Students join the iNaturalist community of observers, which includes professional and non-professional naturalists. Therefore, students can see the themselves as scientists by contributing locally relevant data to a global and digital community of scientists. Experience working with large datasets such as the CNC iNaturalist dataset is essential for STEM careers and building data literacy. Implementing these experiences in classrooms will provide students unique opportunities to learn more about local biodiversity, develop interdisciplinary skills and positively influence a global network of scientists. Citation: Joyner JL, O’Donnell KL. 2021. Developing data literacy skills and connecting the student experience in the classroom to the community through biodiversity projects. CourseSource. https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2021. 13 Editor: Nathan Emery, Michigan State University Received: 1/9/2020; Accepted: 12/10/2020; Published: 4/9/2021 Copyright: © 2021 Joyner and O’Donnell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Authors own the text, figures, tables, artwork, abstract, summaries, and supporting materials for publication. With the exception of the use of webpage screenshots and reference to iNaturalist program, which is used with permission. Conflict of Interest and Funding Statement: None of the authors has a financial, personal, or professional conflict of interest related to this work. Supporting Materials: Supporting Files S1. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Urban Biodiversity Presentation; S2. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Guide to iNaturalist and Download Data; S3. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Dataset1 2017 City Nature Challenge; S4. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Prepared Data Analysis Template; S5. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Overall Student Instructions; and S6. Data Literacy Through Biodiversity Projects – Detailed Instructions to Calculate Biodiversity. *Correspondence to: P.O. Box 4010, Atlanta, GA 30303; jjoyner14@gsu.edu CourseSource | www.coursesource. org 2021 | Volume 08 1 Lesson