Abstract
Despite 250 years of modern taxonomy, there remains a large biodiversity knowledge gap. Most species remain unknown to science. DNA barcoding can help address this gap and has been used in a variety of educational contexts to incorporate original research into school curricula and informal education programmes. A growing body of evidence suggests that actively conducting research increases student engagement and retention in science. We describe case studies in five different educational settings in Canada and the USA: a programme for primary and secondary school students (ages 5–18), a year-long professional development programme for secondary school teachers, projects embedding this research into courses in a post-secondary 2-year institution and a degree-granting university, and a citizen science project. We argue that these projects are successful because the scientific content is authentic and compelling, DNA barcoding is conceptually and technically straightforward, the workflow is adaptable to a variety of situations, and online tools exist that allow participants to contribute high-quality data to the international research effort. Evidence of success includes the broad adoption of these programmes and assessment results demonstrating that participants are gaining both knowledge and confidence. There are exciting opportunities for coordination among educational projects in the future.This article is part of the themed issue ‘From DNA barcodes to biomes’.
Highlights
Many calls have gone out to provide more opportunities to participate in scientific research for both students and the general public
The Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the USA recommend that all primary and secondary school students understand science as it is practised in the real world [1]
The landmark Vision and change in undergraduate biology education report [2] emphasizes how transformative research experiences can be for post-secondary students
Summary
Many calls have gone out to provide more opportunities to participate in scientific research for both students and the general public. DNA-validated identifications are delivered to a range of collaborators including environmental researchers, conservationists and managers, with the particular environmental data needs that prompted the collections in the first place As part of this pilot project, the representation of the Acadia region plant and animal species in the DNA barcode reference library within BOLD has been improved, to serve as an identification resource for citizen-scientist-collected specimens. Powered by Anecdata (anecdata.org), a next-generation online citizen science tool, BioTrails Basecamp will be for everyone: informal STEM learning researchers and practitioners, environmental scientists, project participants and others will be able to generate and/or analyse large-scale environmental and learning data It will include a species identification decision support tool to integrate multiple technologies for species identification: DNA barcoding, and online tools and apps such as the iNaturalist (inaturalist.com)
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