KCC FIG – Undergraduate Research as a High Impact Practice

Minutes of the Meeting of Fri, 10/30/2020, 11:30am via Zoom

Present:   Grace Axler-DiPerte (BIO), Christina Colon (BIO), Jodie Delsol (PHY SCI), Mary Ortiz (BIO),Kristin Polizzotto (BIO), Farshad Tamari (BIO),

Meeting began at 11:30am.

1. Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming.
2. We discussed SCORMS, by John Acosta.  Kristin has attended a meeting for SCORMS, and explained that there is one more meeting, and that the first two are available online.
3. Mary shared the Science Forward website she received from Shawna Brandle:

https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu

This is a website from CUNY MacCaulay that has several useful resources, such as open data bases for use for research, museum websites with higher ed activities and information, and other resources. 

• Mary also shared the www.nasa.gov website.  This site, too, contains resources for educators, such as images from space that can be analyzed, and data for use in academia.
• Mary asked for input on how to deal with students not submitting data.  She shared that of 25 active students in BIO2100, only 15 submitted the longitude and latitude for the location where they are recording vertebrate observations.  Christina suggested doing the project in increments each week.  Kristin suggested putting the announcements at the beginning of each week in Blackboard or to put it in a folder (we noted that course links do not show up in an email from Blackboard Announcements sent).  Next time around Mary may have pieces of the project due throughout the semester instead of the report being due at the end of the semester.
• Christina uses Team Leaders or Peer Mentors in her classes to encourage student participation.  Then they can add that they were a team leader or peer mentor on a project  to their resume.
• Grace discussed using Weblink in Blackboard.
• Jodie shared that in CUNY First you cannot make an attachment often.  She suggested emailing students via CUNY First by going into Faculty Center, then Notifications, then Student Lists, then email to a particular student.
• A discussion of Starfish also took place (it is in Quick Links on the KCC website) to try to contact students.
• Jodie shared Google Voice.
• Mary shared that she and Kristin received water quality data from Robert Ganz of the NYC EPA.  Items include parameters such as pH, NO₃, water temperature, etc.  Christina may be interested in using these data in BIO5300 – Ecology next semester for students to do class research.
• Kristin shared that there is also BOP (Billion Oyster Project) data available.
• Kristin mentioned the upcoming STEM FIG on Tue 11/10/2020 at 12pm via Zoom.
• Christina discussed an NSF Grant opportunity she is working on.  She would like to involve colleagues on this and will tell us more later.
• Next meeting: Fri, 11/20/2020, 11:30 via Zoom.  We will continue discussion/bring new ideas.

Meeting adjourned at 12:20pm.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz