Soil Ecology - Sistla
Soil Ecology - Sistla
Course Title and Number
Brief Description of course highlights: The course I am implementing the OER program into is Soil Ecology (SS422), which is an upper division major course. This course will explore ecological concepts around soil biodiversity, decomposition, nutrient cycling, and plant-soil interactions, with a focus on how global change drivers are affecting soil ecological function in a virtual format due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Student population: The majority of the students are upper level undergraduate or graduate students with a focus in soil or plant science, or natural resource management. The students appear to come from a wide range of socio-economic demographics, although I have not formally collected this information. The pre-requisites for the class are in organic chemistry and plant-soil relations and most have previously or are concurrently taking these courses.
Soil Ecology Objectives and Learning outcomes:
- Describe the ecological processes and services supported by the soil foodweb
- Identify the main groups of soil organisms, their role in ecological process and ecosystem services
- Describe the main types of biological interactions and their contributions to soil ecological processes and ecosystem services across scales
- Understand the main threats for soil organisms and how they affect soil ecological processes
- Understand the effects of soil management on soil organisms, ecological processes and overall soil health
- Improve critical reading skills and become familiar with scientific literature relevant to soil ecology
- Develop soil ecology data synthesis, analysis, and hypothesis-building skills
- Enhance communication, synthesis, and collaboration skills around soil ecology and conservation issues
- Build open access resources for undergraduate Soil Ecology courses
Textbook or OER/Low cost Title:
Student access: I made sure all material for the course is freely available and interpretable. Students access course material through the class Canvas page. I also added the following assignment: students will develop a curated Open Educational Resource (OER) for undergraduate soil ecology classes at Cal Poly and elsewhere. Each class member will chose a topic, collaboratively identify 4 primary research articles, 1 review article, and 1 popular press/media piece that exemplifies the topic and write a 2 page detailed summary of the topic + links to curated sources.
Cost Savings: A Soil Ecology textbook normally costs $100. Providing pdfs of chapters freely saves students (28) $100 in textbook fees, so $2800 in savings. The creation of a curated OER resource through the class for other Soil Ecology courses could increase savings for students outside of the university.
OER/Low Cost Adoption Process
Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. My motivations for adopting OER for this course centers around improving and customizing course materials to increase understanding of scientific inquiry beyond the 'textbook as fact' model by including freely accessible, primary materials that are reflective of the current state of the field (soil ecology).
How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? OER were identified by reading colleagues' soil ecology course syllabi and working through primary literature using Google Scholar.
Sharing Best Practices: I think relying less on textbooks as the base of courses and more on primary literature with textbooks as a (freely accessible) supplement strengthens pedagogy in the sciences by introducing current ideas and approaches to understanding the area of inquiry (in this case soil ecology). I am piloting having the class, which is using OER materials, also curate materials (readings, media) that they find useful on a topic within the course. I think this is a great way to gain insights into what students actually find meaningful and useful for their learning and a way to augment and develop OER course materials.
Seeta Sistla
California State University, San Luis Obispo
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