Brent Stoffer and I are working on a new initiative to incorporate data science and coding into UC’s introductory biology course. We received funding from UC to start implementing these changes. See the overview of our plans in the video here
I developed a module for the course in 2021 which was based around using automated tracking data from penguins at the Cincinnati Zoo. Students worked with the data to summarize and plot patterns through using simple R scripts. In Fall 2022, with new funding from the Great Gateways program, Brent and I modified this activity to be more hands-on. We purchased RFID tags and inexpensive USB RFID readers which we used to simulate penguin data. Students carried tags and moved around the lab room, scanning in to any antenna they came near. This activity allowed students to build their own datasets for initial analyses, where they had a very clear idea of how the data were generated. Students analyzed their own data to find patterns, then used the same approach to analyze real penguin data from the zoo. Students even got to build simple social networks from their data, thanks to an R Shiny app built by my graduate student Sanjay Prasher.
Brent and I are currently strengthening this activity, making it more robust, and analyzing student perspectives on how this new activity may have increased their understanding and/or engagement in the lab module.
