Leveraging the Power of the Web When Books Aren’t Enough
By Lauren Marsh
Donning hip waders, a group of high school students ventures out into a Minnesota stream where they gather water samples. Upon their return to the classroom, they will examine the samples under a microscope and identify the aquatic organisms within. It's a terrific biology lesson. Students learn how to identify different aquatic organisms and about how human activity affects water quality, which is reflected in the presence or absence of the species they find.
While they learn, the students also are in the process of providing academics and environmental professionals with vital information about the health of Minnesota streams. Student groups are an important component of the Volunteer Stream Monitoring Partnership, a program of the University of Minnesota Water Resources Center open to anyone with the time and interest. Over 1,900 volunteers monitor 51 stream sites in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and submit their findings. Leonard Ferrington, a professor of entomology, contributed to this project by designing the Aquatic Insect Interactive Verification Program Web site, which leverages the power of the Web to provide volunteers with the scientific data they need to complete their work.
In designing the site Ferrington took into account that this collaborative effort depends on gathering accurate data, but that student volunteers vary greatly in their expertise and experience. When he began working with the Water Resources Center four years ago, the accuracy rate was discouraging—only 50 percent. Development of a printed guide that included information keys and line drawings helped bring the rate up to 80 percent. While this was a significant improvement, Ferrington thought volunteers still needed more and better information. He and his team, the Chironomidae Research Group, began to develop Web-based materials as a supplement to the print guide. Currently in development is an extensive online catalog of photographs organized according to the scientific classification system. Ferrington hopes that the combination of the printed guide and the Web site will increase the identification accuracy rate to 95 percent. According to Ferrington, the Web materials offer many advantages over printed materials.
Unlike a book, a Web site can support photographic images that offer detail and visual nuance impossible to capture in a line drawing. In Ferrington's opinion, "a photograph is worth 10,000 line drawings." Photographs show true color and provide a sense of how flat or three-dimensional the specimen is. "We can't get that kind of information into a line drawing without using hundreds of them." Adding the necessary drawings would make the already extensive printed guide unwieldy. Ferrington estimated they would need five to seven more drawings for each of 100 families in the book—up to 700 total!
Unlike books, Web sites can act as flexible repositories of knowledge. Ferrington has collected three years' worth of data about the misidentifications that volunteers are likely to make, which he intends to add to the site. He also plans to add a series of images that convey how pollutants compromise different specimens. Currently the online catalog is organized down to the scientific classification level of Family; the team plans to develop a more detailed version to the level of Genus. The Web is virtually unlimited in terms of its potential to provide breadth and depth of information to volunteers.
The Web site helps student volunteers hone their environmental sleuthing skills and prepare for other opportunities offered in conjunction with the volunteer program. Once a year the Science Museum of Minnesota invites high school participants to the River Summit, an event that brings together natural resources professionals and volunteers from all over the Twin Cities. In teams, students assess the water quality of a particular stream and compete to come up with the most effective course of action to address water pollution. Ferrington points out that the volunteer program and opportunities such as the summit help make young students aware of the environmental sciences and of educational opportunities at the University. And as part of the Volunteer Stream Monitoring Partnership, the Aquatic Insect Interactive Verification Program Web site serves to educate the scientists of tomorrow.
Related Resources
- Ferrington was awarded a 2005 TEL grant to work on this project. Read his grant proposal: Volunteer Stream Monitoring Interactive Verification Program (VSM-IVP; PDF).
- Ferrington was awarded a 2006-07 DMC faculty fellowship. See the DMC Faculty Fellowship Program page.
