Meeting Abstract

P3-231  Monday, Jan. 6  Integrating Digitized Natural History Collections into Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences KRUMM, JL*; SHEA, EK; WOODS, JL; Widener University, Chester, PA; Delaware Museum of Natural History, Wilmington; Delaware Museum of Natural History, Wilmington jlkrumm@widener.edu

Undergraduate research in biology is effective in increasing student engagement, retention, and long-term success. Embedding research experiences in biology coursework can increase participation in undergraduate research, especially for minority and first generation college students. To help increase student engagement in undergraduate research, Biological Collections in Ecology and Evolution Network (BCEENET) is developing a community of undergraduate educators, natural history collections experts, education experts, and data experts to support the development and implementation of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) using digitized natural history collections. BCEENET will explore how ecology and evolutionary biology classes can mine the hundreds of millions of data records being curated and served on web-based data portals such as iDigBio.org. We will discuss how digitized natural history collections research has been implemented in an upper division biology CURE and opportunities for educators and researchers to get involved in the BCEENET research coordination network.