Abstract
Simple SummaryTo attract bright, creative, and curious students to the academic fields of applied entomology and sustainable food production, instructors of undergraduate and graduate student courses should discuss experiences with lectures and lab sessions and share effective interactive teaching tools. This communication describes how a simple population model in an Excel spreadsheet can be used in teaching both insecticide resistance evolution and basic economics of insecticide-based pest management. A tutorial video and the model as an Excel spreadsheet are freely available. Through hands-on experience with this and similar interactive teaching tools, students will acquire fundamental knowledge about basic structures population models and they will acquire experience with quantitative data interpretation. Teachers can use this tool and accompanying tutorials to demonstrate how models can be used to describe and visualize complex interactions between insect genetics and crop management. Furthermore, data from published studies can be analyzed and discussed using this interactive teaching tool.Effective teaching of complex concepts relies heavily on the ability to establish relevance of topics and to engage students in a constructive dialogue. To connect students with abstract concepts and basic theory, instructors foster and facilitate an engaging teaching environment. Population modeling is a cornerstone in applied entomology. However, it is also a topic and skill set that requires both basic mathematical and biological knowledge, and it may be perceived by students as being abstract and exceedingly theoretical. As a way to introduce entomology students at both that undergraduate and graduate levels to hands-on experience with population modeling, a well-established and widely used deterministic genetic population model is presented as an interactive teaching tool. Moreover, the general model describes three genotypes (SS = homozygous susceptible, SR = heterozygous, and RR = homozygous resistant) during 30 discrete and univoltine generations under a shared population density dependence (carrying capacity). Based on user inputs for each genotype (survival, fitness cost, reproductive rate, emigration, and immigration) and an initial resistance allele frequency, model outputs related to resistance evolution are produced. User inputs related to insecticide-based pest management (pest density action threshold, crop damage rate, insecticide treatment costs, and profit potential) can also be introduced to examine and interpret the basic economic effects of different insect pest management scenarios. The proposed model of resistance evolution and basic economics of pest management relies on a large number of important simplifications, so it may only have limited ability to predict the outcomes of real-world (commercial) scenarios. However, as a teaching tool and to introduce students to a well-known and widely used genetic population model structure, the interactive teaching tool is believed to have considerable utility and relevance.
Highlights
Most scientific journals publish standard research articles, short communications, opinion pieces, and reviews, but the number of articles describing aspects of scientific teaching and use of interactive teaching tools are rare or entirely absent
As a way to introduce entomology students at both undergraduate and graduate levels to hands-on experience with modeling more broadly, a well-established and widely used deterministic genetic population model is presented as an interactive teaching tool
Using this interactive teaching tool, two separate but highly complementary aspects of insect pest management can be discussed with students: (1) risk of insecticide resistance evolution and (2) basic economics of insecticidebased pest management
Summary
Most scientific journals publish standard research articles, short communications, opinion pieces, and reviews, but the number of articles describing aspects of scientific teaching and use of interactive teaching tools are rare or entirely absent. The same literature search suggested that, within the last 50 years, the word “teaching” in entomological science journals is almost exclusively restricted to obituaries of prominent entomologists with references to their teaching appointments This communication is intended to promote a resurrection of a past publication priority, namely articles describing entomological teaching methods and resources. It is intended to be a teaching tool to introduce students to a well-known and widely used model structure and to enable students to learn about both the advantages and limitations of genetic population models Using this interactive teaching tool, two separate but highly complementary aspects of insect pest management can be discussed with students: (1) risk of insecticide resistance evolution and (2) basic economics of insecticidebased pest management. I believe that it is timely to resurrect this publication focus, as publications describing interactive teaching tools can nowadays be accompanied by links to tutorial Youtube videos and other learning resources
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