Association for Biology Laboratory Education

There’s an App for That
    

Emily Boone

Advances in Biology Laboratory Education, 2024, Volume 44

https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v44.abs21

Abstract

Do your students forget to collect all of the data they are supposed to while in the field? Do they spend more time on their phones taking pictures instead of taking data? Do you wonder if they are identifying organisms correctly? Are you tired of reminding them to enter their data into the group spreadsheet? What if your students could collect data while walking across campus? What if you could make data collection a larger community wide effort? Well, there’s an app for that! In this workshop, participants will learn how to build and use a simple field map collector app using ArcGIS online, a program that many universities already have site licenses for. Collector apps can be a useful tool for students to collect and examine both ecological and spatial data as part of a lab you already do in the field, to have online students collect data from different locations at the same time or to engage the larger community while collecting more data for your class. Customizable fields allow you to target the specific quantitative or qualitative data that you want your students to collect and best of all it is already organized and ready to map without having to enter it into a separate spreadsheet after lab. Students are going to bring their cell phones to class anyway. Why not put them to good use?

Keywords:  field app, collector app, arc gis online

University of California, San Diego (2023)