Assistant Professor of Biology University of the Ozarks Clarksville, Arkansas
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed much stress on students in the form of personal health and safety, the care for older family members, and restricted social activities on campuses that would promote mental health. In the classroom, students are socially distanced, wearing masks, and spend less time collaborating. We decided to remedy this by incorporating hands-on, group-oriented research to foster collaboration, while sending students outdoors to improve mental health. This took the form of a study examining the species diversity of insect pollinators in the immediate area and surrounding University of the Ozarks (UO), in an entomology course. This was a simple study that collected species diversity data, but mainly focused on student mental health and engagement during this tumultuous time. In collaboration with EREN-NEON and their faculty mentoring network, students learned how to identify common pollinators to functional morphospecies. Students also identified functional traits for common flowering plants and used these to determine relationships between plant traits and insect pollinator visitations. Quadrats of 1m were used for 10-minute trials in which pollinators were recorded. We found that there was little morphospecies diversity at UO, with more diversity further from campus. Non-syrphid flies and honeybees were most abundant around campus, with fewer pollinators overall in many parts of campus. Adjusting the needs of the study was important to keep students engaged, including repeated goals, flexible times to collect data, and adapting to student circumstances. The positives and negatives of the study will be discussed alongside student feedback.
