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Karen Oberhauser
Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
PHOTO BY
MICHELLE SOLENSKY
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When Karen Oberhauser
began her career at the University of Minnesota, she was a research
scientist studying butterfly reproductive biology. But then one
day she brought a dozen caterpillars to her daughter's kindergarten
classroom. The caterpillars--and Oberhauser--were a hit. From there,
the idea behind Monarchs in the Classroom, a comprehensive science
education program, was born. Fourteen years later, Oberhauser, an
assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and
Conservation Biology, continues as director of Monarchs in the Classroom,
maintains an active research lab, and serves on the graduate faculty
in the Conservation Biology Program. It's less of a juggling act
than it appears. "The boundaries are very blurry between my
different interests," says Oberhauser.
In her research, Oberhauser studies not only monarch reproduction,
but also monarch population dynamics. She is interested in the effects
that disease, global climate change, pesticides, and agriculture
can have on the distribution and abundance of immature monarch stages.
Toward this end, in 1997 she developed a citizen volunteer program
within Monarchs in the Classroom called the Monarch Larva Monitoring
Project (MLMP). Oberhauser and her students recruited the first
few volunteers for the project through list-servs, newsletters,
meetings, and word of mouth. The volunteers were trained to monitor
milkweed patches in gardens and parks for the presence of monarch
eggs and larvae, then report their results back to Oberhauser's
group.
Recruitment for the MLMP now uses a train-the-trainer network and
takes place through nature centers and other outdoor environmental
education facilities. The MLMP has grown to a large-scale citizen
science project with nearly 1000 volunteers in 40 states and Canada.
"As citizen science grows in popularity, it is becoming much
easier to recruit people," says Oberhauser. What accounts for
the success of the MLMP's volunteer-based effort? Oberhauser thinks
the answer lies in the subject matter itself. "Monarchs are
perfect for this kind of project because, one, people aren't afraid
of them; two, they are widespread and relatively showy, which means
that people recognize them; and, three, they have an incredibly
exciting biology. The fact that they have to navigate thousands
of miles to mountaintops in central Mexico lends an air of mystery
to them."
Through the MLMP, Oberhauser has access to a quantity of data that
she and her lab could never gather on their own. Analyses of data
collected by the MLMP indicate that the past three years represent
three of the four lowest years for overall population numbers. "While
this downward trend could represent a purely chance phenomenon and
can be partially explained by weather factors, it is a disturbing
trend that is definitely cause for concern," she says.
The MLMP has not only functioned as a vehicle to provide access
to data, but as a scientific education tool. After its inception,
it soon became clear that the program worked very well when adults
worked with children on the project. Oberhauser and her colleagues
became interested in its educational value, including (but not limited
to) use by teachers and students in the upper elementary through
high school grades. With the MLMP, Oberhauser has involved the public
in a scientific endeavor in a way that will enhance their knowledge
of the scientific process in general. "It is so important that
the public understand science, because public policy is driven by
public interests. We can use this model organism [the monarch] to
engage the public in scientific research in a way that helps them
to understand and support science," says Oberhauser.
Oberhauser's approach to educating the public about science extends
beyond using monarchs as the subject matter. Along with colleagues
from the College of Education and Human Development, the Bell Museum,
and the College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences,
she has developed an innovative program to improve K-12 science
education. In a nutshell, University of Minnesota graduate students
who are training to be professional scientists will work in K-12
classrooms for a year, experiencing a broad array of ways in which
they can support K-12 education in their professional careers. These
students will likely then encourage the next generation of graduate
students to do likewise.
This concept has caught the eye of the National Science Foundation
(NSF), a federal funding agency that has made improving K-12 science,
technology, engineering, and math education one of its key initiatives.
The NSF has just awarded Oberhauser and her colleagues a three-year,
$1.9 million grant to implement this program in four Twin Cities
schools. "Many programs, including mine, have supported similar
smaller efforts in the past, and it's wonderful to have the recognition
from NSF that this approach is valuable to the enterprise of science
in the U.S. I'm excited about working with students from across
several colleges, and also about the expertise brought to the project
from co-principal investigators in the College of Education and
Human Development and the Bell Museum," she says.
Graduate students are not the only beneficiaries of this new program.
The research expertise they can provide will expose teachers and
students in the selected classrooms to more inquiry-based science
projects, which will increase teacher and student scientific literacy
(and maybe provide the world with the next generation of scientists).
And it all started with a dozen caterpillars and some curious kindergartners. |
Monarch butterfly project Web sites
Monarch Larva Monitoring Project www.mlmp.org
Monarchs in the Classroom www.monarchlab.org
Project team for the Graduate Fellows and Environmental
Biology in K-12 Education NSF grant
Karen Oberhauser, College of Natural Resources
Lesa Covington-Clarkson, College of Education and
Human Development
Scott Lanyon, Bell Museum
Frances Lawrenz, College of Education and Human
Development
Susan Weller, College of Agricultural, Food, and
Environmental Sciences
Project Web site: www.gk12.umn.edu
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