Making best use of face to face time for environmental science classes during COVID19 restrictions

Abstract:

Providing hands on lab experiences during a period where social distancing, masking and face to face meetings are limited is a challenge for all sciences. The environmental sciences have a potentially easier time than some other sciences, at least as far as field experiences go. American University is an urban campus, but there are walking trails in woodsy areas with easy reachable watershed, interesting geology crops (such as Precambrian metagreywacke bedrock, Cambrian granite and genesis intrusions) and an enhanced biodiversity. There are also wetlands, sandy alluvium, and eastern deciduous forest soils. Upper level environmental science, geology and biogeochemisty classes moved to online lecture content, but being in such a rich environment give the possibility to divide each class into two groups and have six to eight face to face meetings using the local environment as a laboratory. A series of lectures and laboratory activities that would normally be in class can be effectively transformed into one-hour hikes along stream channels cut through the bedrock; or trips to collect soils into pre-weighed vials for chemical characterization; or walk to learn to read into the soil's origins by examining its physical characteristics; or trips to calculate biodiversity indices recording the presence of organisms in a particular area or to estimate the ecosystem services value of needle trees versus the broadleaf trees. All these activities engage students in their local environment and provides a much richer in person experience than a one-hour lecturer ever could. In synthesis, outdoor science can offer solutions to the challenges that the educational systems are currently facing, and can be considered as a good solution in delivering the classic lecture or laboratory contents.