Designing Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Labs with Citizen Science and Service-learning

 

Chrissy C. Spencer & Colin D. Harrison

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2018, Volume 39

Abstract

Education research finds support for the value of authentic research experiences to students’ educational gains in biology laboratory courses. Here we outline a methodology to incorporate authentic course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) into the lab using the community approaches of citizen science and service-learning. We provide a concrete example of a sophomore-level genetics service-learning lab course that uses biological samples provided by citizen scientists. We then frame steps to assist instructors to develop their own citizen science or service-learning lab curriculum. Depending upon the resources available at different institutions, these steps may vary but we hope they, in addition to examples from the detailed case study, provide a solid foundation for a potential community driven course-based undergraduate research experience.

Keywords:  service learning, citizen science, course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), project-based laboratory learning, community partner

University of Wisconsin, Madison (2017)