INVOLVING UNDERGRADUATES IN RESEARCH: SHORT TERM, INQUIRY-BASED PROJECTS WITH LONG TERM GOALS

The importance of involving students in research is widely recognized. However, many faculty members at small, primarily undergraduate institutions would probably agree that time for research is very limited, due to their large teaching loads. And, at those institutions, it can be difficult to meaningfully involve undergraduates in research, due to the short time frames during which we may interact with our students (a semester or two). The inclusion of research as a teaching tool provides a way to maximize research time and effort.

Presented here are some examples of the incorporation of short term, inquiry-based undergraduate research projects into a long term faculty research program, aimed at understanding regional changes in landscape dynamics.

The campus of Edinboro University is located in a glacial valley, near the boundary of the last major advance of the Laurentide ice sheet, in northwestern Pennsylvania. Within this landscape is a complicated mosaic of glacial, fluvial, and lacustrine landforms that contain a scantily studied sedimentological record of those past depositional environments. These features thus provide an opportunity to involve undergraduates in faculty research into late and post-glacial landscape response to environmental change. By carefully focusing student research activities, faculty gain important pieces to a larger puzzle while students gain valuable practical research experience.

Depending on the course or student/faculty research interest, students begin research by formulating hypotheses concerning a specific aspect of the local landscape. Students then collect field and laboratory data in order to test hypotheses. They then analyze their data and provide written syntheses of each portion of their work. Students are given feedback through group discussions and sequential examination of each component of their project. The final student project summarizes some aspect of local landscape dynamics. Some examples of student research projects recently completed at Edinboro University include; soil profile development in river terraces as a function of age, historic sedimentation patterns in Edinboro Lake, long term sedimentation rates of Edinboro Lake, and riverine environmental assessments.