Texas A&M Entomology Research Network

high impact learning

Students Experience Hands-On Learning With Insect Collecting Trip

by

Lindsey Garza with a grasshopper she collected at a recent trip to Lick Creek Park.
Lindsey Garza with a grasshopper she collected at a recent trip to Lick Creek Park. Submitted photo

Several students in Dr. Julio Bernal’s ENTO 313, Biology of Insects, lab got the experience of a lifetime this March as they learned valuable hands-on experience in collecting insects at Lick Creek Park early in March.

The students worked throughout the class period learning the various techniques and the insect biodiversity that is at the park. Teaching assistant and Ph.D. student Ordom Huot led the trip and said that he wanted to teach and use some of the collection and identification techniques that were taught in the lab and during the lecture.

“I believe that it’s important for students to observe insects in nature to understand the important role of insects and to have experiences applying the knowledge they had gained in class,” Huot said.

Huot said this was the first time the students had worked in the field collecting insects and that insects they were focusing on were in the orders Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Diptera (flies), Collembola (springtails), Isoptera (termites), and Coleoptera (beetles).

Senior Wildlife and Fisheries major Katherine Hoffman said that her favorite part of the activity was learning all the different collection techniques and collecting various insects including springtails and dung beetles.

Students in ENTO 313 collecting insects
Students in ENTO 313 Dr. Julio Bernal’s ENTO 313, Biology of Insects collecting insects off of a tree out at Lick Creek Park. The students received valuable information on how entomologists collected insects in the field during the trip. Submitted photo.

“I think I perfected the technique of removing bark to collect Collembola,” she said. “It was great and lots of fun.”

In addition to dung beetles and springtails, some students caught grasshoppers and some paper wasps, including junior Lindsey Garza. She caught a fairly large grasshopper near the trails.

“It was cool. I saw him on the ground and I thought it was great when I got him,” she said.

Garza said her favorite part of the trip was working with the various techniques, including using a sweep net to capture insects.

“It was fun chasing the insects with the net,” she said. “They’re really fast!”

Senior Biomedical Sciences and Entomology major Amanda Blake learned that there were a lot of surprises when collecting insects.

“I learned that insects are in a lot of places that I didn’t expect,” she said. “I thought collecting them was great.”

Huot was pleased with the outcome and said the students did enjoy the collection time, despite the cooler weather conditions.

“I was just hoping to show students different techniques of collecting insects so that they can collect insects on their own,” he said. “Frankly, I did not expect much since the weather was unpredictable and it was still cold outside, but the students had so much fun and we found so many insects. So we ended up staying at the park longer than planned.”

Students Receive Unique Learning Experience by Creating Online Journal

by

Adrienne Brundage story 12-11-14 -2
Ada Morales reviewing an article that was submitted for the journal during the final day of class. Photo By Rob Williams.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Students in senior lecturer Dr. Adrienne Brundage gave the challenge to her students in the Entomology 481 Writing Seminar class to come up with a way to combine science writing and editing an online journal.

The challenge was taken as the students in the class worked on a project for an online journal that will contain submissions from student writers in the Department with the students in her class taking the role of editors of the submitted articles.

The journal called “Instars: A Journal of Undergraduate Research,” is an open access, electronic journal that will be published on the TAMU Library’s online Open Access Journal website later in December. Brundage said that she called for the students in ENTO 423, ENTO 208 and FIVS 435 to volunteer to submit their papers to the new journal.

Students in the class served as peer editors where they were placed in small groups of two to three and were tasked with reviewing each submission for proper content, format and grammar by using a standardized rubric for submitting papers professionally.

Each group then submits a written article analysis on the article, critiquing on its grammar, style and content, and then is passed onto three different groups with a final publication decision after the third review. She said that at the end of the semester, the students vote on 15 to 20 papers to be submitted to the journal as their final project.

Adrienne Brundage story 12-11-14 -3
Dr. Adrienne Brundage working with a student. Photo by Rob Williams.

Brundage said the idea came to her after looking for a way to encourage her students to take pride in their work and provide something that they can be motivated in producing a quality piece for the public. “I wanted to give the students in this class a reason to want to learn how to write better, while giving them the opportunity to learn from the successes and mistakes of other writers,” she said. “I also wanted to give them a little taste of what they would be doing as a peer reviewer or editor after they graduated.”

She also said that the publication of this journal is an excellent tool for encouraging them to keep writing quality work and gives them experience on publishing scientific articles in the real world.

“I decided to use the publication of the journal as a final project because it gave the students something to work towards. The idea was to set up a situation where each week the students were learning something that would have near-immediate rewards,” she said.

“I thought that the students needed to take a risk with this, as well. The idea that people all over the country will have access to this journal once it is published is enough to give the students an extra push towards doing their best work,” she said.

Entomology senior Ada Morales said her favorite part of the course was critiquing and reviewing articles and that the course was fun but a lot of hard work.

“It took a lot of hard work but it was worth it,” she said. “It has taught me well in determining between what is good and bad scientific writing.”

Brundage was impressed at the results and is already excited about publishing the inaugural edition.

“I think this project went pretty well,” Brundage said. “This allowed us to change things during the semester when they needed to be changed, and gave the students an element of control over the process.”

The 2014 issue of the journal will be published on December 20 at the following address: https://journals.tdl.org/instars/index.php/instars.

Brundage said that all Entomology students are welcome to submit their presentations to her for the 2015 edition and can do so by going to the journal website or by e-mail at Adrienne.Brundage@ag.tamu.edu.