Paleoceanographic proxy reconstructions of Gulf of Maine pH: Coupling research and undergraduate learning goals in response to COVID-19.

Abstract:

As teaching faculty, engagement in research can support our pedagogy in a variety of ways. Although student research projects can be incorporated into courses, academics often separate their personal research goals from teaching in the classroom. For many faculty members, the COVID-19 pandemic has put profound limitations on our capacity to engage in research programs due to an array of factors including increased time demands for online course development, new responsibilities as primary caretakers, and more. In response to this dilemma, we have coupled the goals of an instructor’s active research collaboration with student learning goals in an online, upper-level undergraduate research experience course entitled “Research in Paleoceanography.” This approach allows the instructor to meet goals for both teaching and research while developing a new online course. In this presentation, the student co-authors will present results from their semester-long collaborative research projects that focus on reconstructing past histories of temperature and acidification in the Gulf of Maine. Students will present calibrations, trace elemental, and isotopic paleoceanographic proxy data measured in both crustose coralline algae and long-lived Arctica islandica clams as part of research funded by Maine Sea Grant and the National Science Foundation. The unusual circumstances created by the pandemic presented an opportunity to experiment with new approaches to learning that may be incorporated into future in-person offerings of this course, including: virtual laboratory tours and discussions with international collaborators, encouragement of virtual student-authored poster presentations at AGU, and deeper engagement with authentic research projects and data sets.