{"id":773,"date":"2018-01-29T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T14:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/?p=773"},"modified":"2018-01-29T09:07:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T14:07:53","slug":"global-perspectives-in-biodiversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/global-perspectives-in-biodiversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Community Learning: \u201cGlobal Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation\u201d with Professor Amber Pitt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- iframe plugin v.4.5 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ -->\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/251742902?title=0&#038;byline=0&#038;portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" 0=\"webkitallowfullscreen\" 1=\"mozallowfullscreen\" 2 3=\"\/&gt;\" 4=\"&lt;p&gt;&lt;a\" 5=\"href=&quot;https:\/\/vimeo.com\/251742902&quot;&gt;Community\" 6=\"Learning\" 7=\"with\" 8=\"Prof.\" 9=\"Amber\" 10=\"Pitt&lt;\/a&gt;\" 11=\"from\" 12=\"&lt;a\" 13=\"href=&quot;https:\/\/vimeo.com\/user7640733&quot;&gt;Jack\" 14=\"Dougherty&lt;\/a&gt;\" 15=\"on\" 16=\"&lt;a\" 17=\"href=&quot;https:\/\/vimeo.com&quot;&gt;Vimeo&lt;\/a&gt;.&lt;\/p&gt;\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\"><\/iframe>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">BIOL\/ENVS 141: Global Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Professor <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/internet2.trincoll.edu\/facProfiles\/Default.aspx?fid=1480313\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Amber Pitt<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/Academics\/MajorsAndMinors\/Environmental\/Pages\/default.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Environmental Science<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/Academics\/MajorsAndMinors\/Biology\/Pages\/default.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Biology<br \/>\n<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trinity College, Hartford, CT <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Professor Amber Pitt\u2019s Fall 2017 \u201cGlobal Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation\u201d course, 48 students, mostly non-science majors, explored how individual choices and actions can affect biodiversity locally and across the globe. In the classroom, Pitt led students through academic study of biological diversity, analyzing current crises, consequences of biodiversity loss, and conservation practices and science to address such issues. To help her students develop a deeper understanding of local biodiversity issues, Pitt decided to implement a community learning component, pairing groups of students with community partners in the greater Hartford area to implement local conservation actions to support biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each group combined their research on a particular biodiversity issue in Hartford with direct action, allowing students to not only conduct localized research about why thinking about conservation matters in this area, but also see the real effects of the problem they are researching and help implement a solution. In collaboration with partners like <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.parkwatershed.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Park Watershed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/popepark.org\/friends-of-pope-park\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Friends of Pope Park<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctriver.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Connecticut River Conservancy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, these conservation projects included planting native wildflowers that support populations of pollinators such as butterflies and bees, implementing river clean-ups to reduce the amount of pollution entering local rivers and streams, establishing rain gardens to reduce stormwater runoff and improve local water quality, and removing invasive plants to restore native habitats. Students gained experience implementing conservation actions that support local and global biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the semester, each group presented their work at a poster fair, discussing both the research they conducted and their action projects in Hartford. In \u201cLosing Habitats, Losing Our Resources,\u201d Gillian Reinhard \u201820, Eliza Croarkin \u201820, Zoe Billington \u201819, and Garrett Healey \u201820 described their research on how deforestation and land development can impact a forest ecosystem, pairing it with real world examples from their time working with Park Watershed to weed out invasive species and replace them with native species to help absorb runoff from a nearby parking lot. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Healey explains, \u201cIt was volunteer work, but it was also very informative because you were able to see the whole system in action and what we were learning in class outside the classroom. Mary Rickel Pelletier [of Park Watershed] had a lot of information for us and showed us what needs to be done to stop habitat degradation within CT, not just at the level of losing our charismatic species but also all the microorganisms that make up the simplest habitats.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Across projects, students lauded the hands-on element of this course. Mhraf Worku \u201818 said this class was \u201cby far the most hands on topic of a class that I\u2019ve personally taken,\u201d explaining that Pitt would \u201cgive us these theoretical frameworks but then tell us how it pertains to your life. Having had the chance to see how it plays out in real life was very helpful. This is something I can use.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The successes of this course are based on Pitt\u2019s leadership and organization, especially considering the large class size and number of community partners. Most community learning courses at Trinity have fairly small class sizes, so that professors can manage the additional components required of collaborating with a community partner, but Pitt wanted to make sure that all of her students had a real-world understanding of local biodiversity issues and what they can do to help. She explains, \u201cIt allows them to be engaged citizens that can do what will make their world and their lives better and happier places.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students in \u201cGlobal Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation\u201d were able to combine classroom-based learning with on-the-ground collaborative action projects to deeply understand the biological issues facing our world today and to contribute to sustaining our region\u2019s environmental systems. <\/span><\/p>\n<iframe src=\"\/\/docs.google.com\/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.trincoll.edu%2Fcli%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F01%2FBIOL_ENVS_141_PosterProjectInstructions_CLI.pdf&hl=en_US&embedded=true\" class=\"gde-frame\" style=\"width:100%; height:500px; border: none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<p class=\"gde-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/files\/2018\/01\/BIOL_ENVS_141_PosterProjectInstructions_CLI.pdf\" class=\"gde-link\">Download (PDF, 325KB)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Interested in developing a Community Learning component for your course like\u00a0<\/em><i>Pitt&#8217;s \u201cGlobal Perspectives on Biodiversity and Conservation\u201d?\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/contact\/\">Contact Megan Hartline<\/a> at the Community Learning Initiative for opportunities, resources, and feedback about this process.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; BIOL\/ENVS 141: Global Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation Professor Amber Pitt, Environmental Science and Biology Trinity College, Hartford, CT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2096,"featured_media":774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,12,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}