KCC FIG – Undergraduate Research as a High Impact Practice
Minutes of the Meeting of Fri, 9/23/2022, 10:30am via Zoom
Mary Theresa Ortiz – Facilitator
Present: Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO Faculty), Mary Theresa Ortiz (KCC BIO Faculty)
Meeting began at 10:30am.
- Mary welcomed Grace and thanked her for coming.
- Mary shared the research project the BIO2100 – Comparative Anatomy class is continuing this semester; that is, identifying and cataloging the birds in the environs of the KCC campus. She shared that there are some issues she is dealing with this semester, such as the students not showing up to their designated observing locations, the students not getting clear photos of the birds (some have old phones that don’t take good photos), and lack of understanding about submitting valid data. She is working with her class to work through these issues.
- Grace suggested a phone app called, SEEK, from the Nat Geo site. It uses your cell phone to take a picture of an organism and then identifies the species. It is easy to use and free to download. Grace has successfully used it on several occasions, and it works well. Mary has a hard copy bird reference from National Geographic that can be used to verify the students’ findings.
- Grace and Mary discussed how important it is to impress upon the students how wrong falsifying data is.
- Mary and Grace brainstormed ideas for future class research projects. More on this at the next meeting.
- Mary had several websites with data available for research that she will share at the next meeting.
- Our next (second) meeting will be on Fri, Oct 7, 2022, at 10:15am via Zoom.
Meeting adjourned at 11:30am.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz