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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2013

• Title: Education and Outreach: 2012
• Primary Author: Clarisse Hart (Harvard Forest)
• Additional Authors: Manisha Patel (Harvard Forest); Pamela Snow (Harvard Forest)
• Abstract:

  Through the Forest’s Schoolyard Ecology Program, twenty-six new K-12 teachers were trained to conduct phenology and HWA research with their students in 2012, putting the total number of teachers trained by the Schoolyard program at 209. Collectively, the 50+ teachers currently participating engage more than 3,500 students in hands-on Schoolyard research each year. Winter and spring workshops led by HF ecologists John O'Keefe, David Orwig, Betsy Colburn, and Emery Boose strengthen teachers’ ability to graph and analyze student data, and encourage peer-to-peer resource sharing by teachers. New interactive maps and an online data system now allow teachers, students, and the public to easily explore and graph data from each Schoolyard site.
  
  
  
  Out of an applicant pool of 585 students, our Summer Research Program brought 32 undergraduates to the Forest to conduct 11 weeks of mentored research in 2012. Many summer students work on interdisciplinary group projects with 2-4 other students and 2-4 mentors. The participation of racial/ethnic minority students in our summer program has increased steadily over the past decade, from a historical average of 15% before 2000 to >50% in 2012. Several students from the 2011 and 2012 cohort have employed their summer data to win awards, co-author papers, and present at national conferences (see http://harvardforestreu.blogspot.com).
  
  
  
  Harvard Forest’s long-term data and field sites were utilized in many university courses in 2012. Dozens of day trips and retreats were organized by undergraduate and graduate classes. Forest-hosted programs for Harvard students included an interdisciplinary Wintersession course, “Reading and Conserving the New England Landscape,” and a semester-long Freshman Seminar, “Global Change Ecology: Forests, Ecosystem Function, and the Future.”
  
  
  
  Ongoing efforts toward media visibility has boosted the presence of Harvard Forest in the news, including features in 2012 in outlets such as NBC Nightly News, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, WBUR, Channel 5’s Chronicle, and NSF’s Science Nation series. In April 2012, a special issue of BioScience featured the LTER network and, with help from Harvard Forest communications staff, received widespread attention in the media. The issue was edited by, and included many papers co-authored by, Harvard Forest researchers.
  
  
  
  A new series of online videos highlighting Harvard Forest global change research were published in spring 2012 and have been viewed thousands of times since.
  
  
  
  Harvard Forest’s art-science collaborations continued to grow in 2012-2013, beginning with a Fall 2012 multimedia exhibit in the Fisher Museum by Roberto Mighty, entitled "First Contact: Puritans, Native Americans, and the clash over land in 1630." A spring exhibition of LTER art, organized in part by HF outreach staff and featuring 6 Harvard Forest artists, is on display from March to June 2013 at National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington VA.
  
  
  
  “New England Forests,” a new permanent exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History that reaches more than 40,000 visitors a year, included continued HFR-focused event programming in 2012-2013. Several public lectures by HFR PIs and a tour of Harvard Forest LTER research sites drew attendance by more than 1,000 students, faculty, and members of the public.
  
  

• Research Category: Regional Studies