Dear EREN-NEON-EDDIE Workshop Participants,
We are excited about your virtual participation on Tuesday, July 20 and Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at the workshop “Integrating large ecological datasets into undergraduate research and teaching with EREN, NEON and Project EDDIE.” This site contains information about the workshop. Specific information we cover includes:
A description of expectations for before, during, and after the meeting.
An overview of a short series of pre-workshop activities for participants. Note: It is important for everyone to engage with the pre-workshop materials before the workshop so that we can maximize our time for interaction and brainstorming.
A listing of optional virtual office hours when you are welcome to connect with the workshop organizers and other participants before the workshop to get assistance with the pre-workshop materials, ask questions or provide feedback, get to know each other, and bounce ideas around. Please see the email communication for Zoom links!
In addition, registration for the workshop, confirming your participation, is required by June 11th. This is only for people who completed an application for the workshop before the May deadline and received an acceptance email from us. The registration form can be found here and will take just 1-2 minutes to complete. Follow-up emails about the workshop will go only to registered applicants, so please complete your registration by June 11.
EREN-NEON-EDDIE Workshop Information
We are so excited that this is happening! We are looking forward to engaging with you and many other participants to learn about using NEON data and other large datasets and to design research projects and teaching activities using EREN and EDDIE approaches.
Before the workshop
In order to get the most out of the workshop, we have designed a set of pre-workshop materials that will help you be familiar with some of the terminology and tools, so that you are prepared to participate.
For each activity, we have provided a brief description and goal, information about what activities are required/optional, an estimated amount of time required, and the virtual office hours for when you will be able to ask questions or meet with the meeting organizers. For the office hours, these are entirely optional and we hope that you come hang out and get help working through these materials or just say hello. *Please note that all materials should be accessible to screenreaders, include alt text for figures, and that the one video has closed captions that have been uploaded to youtube. If you have any issue with accessibility on any document, please contact matthew.heard@belmont.edu and we will make sure these are promptly addressed.
Pre-workshop Activities
Activity 1: What is an EREN project? (Approx. Required Time – 30 Minutes)
Contact Person For Questions: Laurie Anderson (ljander@owu.edu)
Activity Goal: How could you use the EREN approach (distributed, collaborative network that includes undergrads) to expand your research? Are there ways you could integrate your research into your teaching?
Required Activity (30 Minutes): Visit the EREN website (https://erenweb.org/) to learn about EREN, and in particular, review the basic structure and traits of an EREN project: https://erenweb.org/proposing-
Optional Activity (1 Hour): Read the paper describing EREN by Simmons et al. (2016).
Activity 2: Introduction to R & R Studio (Approx. Required Time – 1.5 Hours)
Contact Person For Questions: Laurie Anderson (ljander@owu.edu); Claire Lunch (clunch@battelleecology.org)
Activity Goal: Novice to R or experienced? We have options for you! While you work through this activity, think about how R could be integrated into your undergraduate teaching. How much R do your students (and you) need to know to work with large datasets?
Required Activity (1.5 Hours): Complete Activity 1 and 2 on the Intro to R document. This includes an installation of R and R Studio and a brief introductory video.
Optional Activities (2.5 Hours): Complete Activity 3 on the Intro to R document, which includes a further exploration of R using 3 activities from Data Carpentry. If you are already familiar with R, you may want to skip the required activity and do this instead.
Office Hours 1: June 22 with Claire, 3-4:30pm CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
Office Hours 2: June 25 with Laurie, 12-1:30pm CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
Activity 3: Working With NEON Data (Approx. Required Time – 1 Hour)
Contact Person For Questions: Claire Lunch (clunch@battelleecology.org)
Activity Goal: What do NEON data have to offer for your research and/or teaching? Thismaterial will give you an introduction to working with NEON data, and to the tools available to help you work with data of interest.
Required Activity (1 Hour): Complete Activity 1 and 2 on the Working With NEON document. This includes an initial overview of NEON data and then an activity that shows participants how to access and handle NEON data.
Optional Activities (Up to 3 Hours): Complete Activity 3, which includes exploration of multiple NEON datasets.
Office Hours : July 12 12-1:30pm CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
Activity 4: Introduction to Project EDDIE (Approx. Required Time – 30 Minutes)
Contact person for questions: Catherine O’Reilly (cmoreil@ilstu.edu)
Activity Goal: How can data-based, open-ended activities be scaffolded to help students learn scientific concepts and quantitative skills? In the workshop, we will discuss your results from this activity and you will design a data-based activity that you can use in your classroom. *Note that you can use either Excel or R. If you want to get a sense of how R works, this module is designed for students, so it’s set up to be accessible.
Required Activity (30 Minutes): Complete Activity 1 and 2 on the Intro to Project EDDIE document. This includes reading through an EDDIE module and accessing data.
Optional Activity (1 Hour): Complete Activity 3 on the Intro to Project EDDIE document. This includes walking through Parts A & B of the EDDIE module.
Office Hours: July 7, 2-4pm CDT. July 15, 9-11am CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
Activity 5: Introduction to QGIS
Contact person for questions: Matt Heard (matthew.heard@belmont.edu)
Activity Goal: How can making maps and conducting basic spatial analyses contribute to your research and teaching programs?
Optional Activity (1 Hour): Complete the activities on the QGIS Intro document that teach you how to make basic maps and load geospatial datasets (vector and raster files) using the free and open source program QGIS.
Office hours: June 21, 11:30am-12:30pm CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
Open Office Hours
We will also host an open office hour for anyone who is interested to stop by to ask questions about any and all of the pre-workshop materials. July 15, 12-2pm CDT – See email communication for Zoom link.
DURING THE WORKSHOP
We will be using Zoom as the platform for the workshop. Please ensure that you have an updated version of Zoom installed on your computer.
We expect everyone to be able to attend both days. You should have adequate internet connection and be able to turn on your camera to participate in interactive small group discussions in breakout rooms. All participants must follow the EREN code of conduct.
Agenda overview
Breaks and networking opportunities will occur throughout the workshop.
Day 1: 10am – 2pm CDT – Introductions & EREN-NEON Research Opportunities
Welcome and introductions
How collaborative EREN research projects work
Overview of NEON
Design an EREN research project with NEON data
Reportbacks
Day 2: 10am – 2pm CDT – Using EREN-NEON Data To Develop Teaching Modules
Present and discuss your results from the Project EDDIE Climate Change Module
Best practices using data-based activities for different course modalities
Pre-recorded talk on the EREN-NEON Flexible Learning Projects / Lunch break
Design an activity you could use in your class
Reportbacks
EREN Macrosystems RCN – how could this network best serve you?
Workshop wrapup and next steps
Accommodations
If there are accommodations that we can provide to facilitate your participation, please contact Matt Heard (matthew.heard@belmont.edu), who is coordinating the workshop tech.
AFTER THE WORKSHOP
Materials from the workshop will be summarized and shared with everyone
Opportunities to continue to collaborate and network throughout the academic year
Potential opportunities for project leader training (with stipends)
Potential opportunities to develop teaching modules at upcoming Project EDDIE workshops (with stipends)
An in-person workshop is planned in Summer 2022 at Belmont University to continue our collaborations