Keck-phase-2

1) Cover Page

• Enter prose or upload finished MS Word (tm) document here.

2) Project Abstract

• 150 word limit.

Earlham College requests $358,877 to develop multidisciplinary science curriculum modules and student/faculty research projects focusing on a common core problem: metals in the environment. This project will emphasize collaboration among our natural science departments, including biology, chemistry, computer science, geosciences, mathematics, and environmental science. Scientific research is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, collaborative, and computational. Therefore, it is essential to train our students to develop multi-faceted approaches to problem solving that use both traditional laboratory techniques and computational methods. This project will introduce an important scientific problem (metals in the environment), ask students to collect and analyze data, and to make interpretations using different disciplinary perspectives. This idea of collaborative multidisciplinary learning will transform our undergraduate curriculum in the sciences and provide a model for programs among the sciences at other liberal arts colleges.

3) Project Narrative

• Maximum of 25 pages conforming to the following requirements:
• 8.5" by 11" paper
• Single spaced with all margins measuring at least 1"
• At least 12 point font in Times New Roman
• No more than 6 lines of type within a vertical space of 1"
• Proposals that do not comply with these requirements will not be accepted
  • Question: 25 pages for the project narrative section or the whole application?

Relation of the objectives to:

• the present state of knowledge in the field
• work in progress by the project personnel under other support
• work in progress at other institutions

Concise description of methods and procedures for implementation and experimentation.

• Overview goes here
• Each courses' plan goes below

biology

Sample the aquatic biota (macropthytes and animals) of Springwood Park Lake in order to 1) describe and quantify the food chains; 2) evaluate the extent of bioaccumulation of metals by those organisms; and 3) assess the rates of biomagnification occuring in higher trophic levels.

Methods: We plan a full inventory of the biota of Springwood Park Lake: Plants will be sampled manually; invertebrates by plankton tows, nets, and dredges; and vertebrates by seine or fyke nets. We will use mark-recapture studies (using injection of passive integrated transponders [PIT tags]) to estimate population sizes and standing crop biomass of macrovertebrates (fish and turtles). Gut content analysis (by dissection for invertebrates, and non-destructive stomach flushing of vertebrates) will be used to determine food chains. Tissue samples (non-destructive whenever possible) will be analyzed in the laboratory for metal concentrations and these values will be related to the trophic ecology of individual species. We would also do sampling of tissues of these same organisms in other county lakes as reference values for these general region.

geology

Course Module-GEOS211 Physical Geology (this is approximately one page of single-spaced text in MS Word)

Physical Geology at Earlham is an introductory-level course that is taken by both science and non-science majors. Students in this course who are non-science majors generally lack confidence in their ability to “do” science and have had little to no exposure to an inquiry-based science classroom. In this course module, students will apply basic geologic methods of analysis to an environmental project. By the end of this module, students will be able to:

Use web-based GIS to display and organize data relevant to the characterization of the project site. Use field and laboratory observations to describe the geology of the project site. Organize and analyze geochemical data to make interpretations about the heavy metal concentrations in the region of the project site. Create a scientific report synthesizing the results of the project and suggesting areas for further study. Upon completion of the project, selected students will present results to other introductory-level students participating in courses with applied modules. All students will then be required to write a report describing the different approaches and results each of these courses takes in studying this environmental problem. (may be revised based on how we decide to structure our multidisciplinary efforts)

This module will use the final four laboratory sessions in Physical Geology. Students will have a basic background in geology and will be able to apply that knowledge to the local area. Each laboratory section has a maximum of twenty-two students, with one professor and one upper-level undergraduate teaching assistant.

Week One: Readings and worksheets will focus on the general problem of metals in the environment. This will be keyed to discussions of the hydrologic cycle with an emphasis placed on the connection between groundwater flow and subsurface geology. Students will begin to learn how to use web-based GIS to create displays of the study area.

Week Two: Field trip to the project site. Students will examine the geology of the project site (Springwood Lake) and participate in a demonstration of sampling a sediment core from the lake.

Week Three: Students will, in teams, describe a suite of sediment cores, in terms of sediment texture, color, sorting, or other sedimentological differences.

Week Four: Students will be given geochemical data keyed to the cores described in Week Three (geochemical data will have been collected by upper-level geochemistry students or will have been collected as part of a summer research project). Students will be required to plot and analyze this data and make interpretations about the concentrations of heavy metals in Springwood Lake over time as a result of their analysis. Students will then write a full scientific report of this project and share the results with other introductory-level science students working on different aspects of this project.

Equipment requests should:

• Describe comparable equipment already at the institution and explain why it cannot be used.
• Explain if the new equipment will be available to support other efforts and how time will be allocated on it.
• Describe plans for facility operations and maintenance.

Describe how the success of the project will be evaluated in terms of the goals proposed. Include information regarding outside review committees, if appropriate.

• Evaluation Team:

We have identified several possible sources of both internal and external evaluation. Internal evaluations may be conducted by one or more members of the project or other faculty and staff within the science division who are not directly involved in developing or using these curricular modules. External evaluators may be drawn from program assessors who have worked previously with Earlham College or from organizations which provide consultancy services such as the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). CUR can provide program evaluation sensitive to issues at predominantly undergraduate institutions including evaluators with experience in evaluating interdisciplinary and interdepartmental programs.

• Timing:

Evaluation of the Keck program will occur both during (formative) and at the end (summative) of the grant period. The formative process evaluations conducted at various points throughout the grant period will assist the faculty and academic departments involved in this interdisciplinary project to refine the project goals and objectives and to make any ongoing modifications or revisions. They will identify what is working during the initial implementation and point to areas needing further development. The summative evaluation will take place at the end of the grant period and will provide a measure of how well the program goals were met as well as provide directions for future growth.

• Goals:

The project leaders will meet with the evaluators to clarify, operationalize, and select and development instruments which evaluate the stated and implicit goals of the project. Some key goals in this case might be:

• • Bridge the gap for students between scientific research and science education by incorporating research modules into several lower and upper division courses
  • Increase student and faculty understanding of interdisciplinary use of field, laboratory, and computational methods to solve a particular problem
  • Encourage student interest in the sciences and increase the percentage of students who take multiple science courses
  • Expand Earlham’s Environmental Studies program by incorporating the study of environmental issues into the core courses of several disciplines
  • Connect community interest and expertise with student/faculty collaborative science research to investigate a question of local concern

The project evaluators might also help to conceptualize key issues or problems that would keep our program from meeting our stated objectives and specify particular criteria for success as well as identify particular data needed to determine how well the components of the program are meeting their objectives.

• Methods:

Delineating project goals will assist us in developing both qualitative and quantitative measures for determining how well our goals are being met during both the formative and summative evaluation phase. Possible qualitative evaluations include:

• • Focus Groups: Informal small-group discussions facilitated by the evaluator conducted with students involved in one or more of the courses impacted by this program as well as faculty involved in the implementation.
  • Open-ended surveys: The evaluator will collect answers without preset response categories to written questions. Surveys with an open-ended component would be given to all students enrolled in courses where a research-based interdisciplinary module was used, faculty who developed and taught such courses, and participants in any workshops in which the faculty involved in the Keck program presented the pedagogy and organization of this project.
  • Semi-structured interviews: The evaluator might conduct semi-structured interviews of key personnel and a representative sample of students to allow the evaluator some first hand experience with the evaluated activities and a chance for in-depth exploration of particular issues.
  • Peer evaluation: Efforts at developing interdisciplinary course modules incorporating computational modeling will be described in peer-reviewed publications providing feedback from the reviewers as well as others who read the articles.

Quantitative evaluations might include:

• • Quantitative surveys: Quantitative pre and post surveys of student or workshop participant attitudes toward and confidence in computational methodology, interdisciplinary collaboration, relevance of environmental studies in particular disciplines, and interest in science and society.
  • Institutional data: Assessment of pre and post grant levels of student participation in undergraduate research, likelihood of taking a secod science class, and number of science majors.
  • Incorporation in curriculum: Measurement of the pre and post grant percentages of incorporation of computational modeling in primarily field or laboratory based courses and field or laboratory modeling in computational courses.
  • Incorporation in co-curriculum: Comparison of the numbers pre and post grant interdisciplinary projects including collaborative research projects and grant writing efforts.

• Results:

Final reports summarizing both the quantitative and qualitative data will be produced. They will asses which and to what degree goals have been met for affected students, faculty, and the institution as a whole as well as provide recommendations for further implantation and dissemination.

4) Project Budget Form

• Do we have a spreadsheet template to work from?
• Upload spreadsheet to <here>.

5) Budget Narrative

• 1. Provide a brief justification of each budget line item.
• 2. State the number of students (undergrad/grad/postdoc), research associates or technicians to be supported and number of years of support.
• 3. Explain why W. M. Keck Foundation support is essential for this project.
• 4. List all current and pending federal and non-federal support, including institutional or departmental funding, related to this project.
• 5. If construction or remodeling is involved, provide a copy of the permits required or an explanation of how and when the permits will be acquired.
• budget narrative

6) Recognition Statement

Describe the manner in which the institution will recognize and acknowledge a W. M. Keck Foundation grant for this project.

• recognition

7) Project Documents

1. Biographical sketches (limit 2 pages for each investigator)

• • Required for key personnel at the applicant institution and collaborators at other institutions.
  • Each sketch should contain name, position title, organization, contact information included e-mail address, degrees, years and field of study for each academic degree, a listing of research and professional positions, awards, and honors, and references to all publications for the past three years along with any earlier publications pertinent to this application.
    • Charlie
    • Corrine
    • Mike
    • Meg
    • Dave
    • John
    • Ron

• 2. Collaborative Arrangements: Provide letters from the collaborators and the director of their institution(s) endorsing this request and the role of each collaborator. Please include contact information including e-mail addresses.
  • collaboration
  • We should already have all of this in the phase I submittal.
  • NITLE letter

• 3. Bibliography of the literature cited in the project.
  • bibliography