Student Success Takes Center Stage at the Second SOAR All-Hands Symposium
On Friday, September 13, 2024, Jasper Ridge hosted the Year 2 All-Hands Symposium for the NSF-funded RCN-UBE project San Francisco Bay Research Coordination Network for Student Opportunities in Avian Research (SOAR). It was exciting to see how the network’s dynamism and success had grown in one year since the first SOAR All-Hands Symposium. Everyone was excited to connect and share their successes offering experiential and authentic field and research experiences to our students. Generative discussions happened in a short amount of time on future ideas and ways for our network partners to collaborate.
Our morning session replicated Year 1’s format: all attendees reported out their activities for the year, and we categorized them by academic courses taught, fieldwork experiences, community building, content learning in avian biology, and experiential learning experiences (Figure 1). It’s a quick and effective way to learn what everyone has done, and see how our collective activities create opportunity for hundreds of undergraduate students in the Bay Area.
Figure 1. Sharing and brainstorming across career stages, with the SOAR Logic Model as a guide, are a core part of the All-Hands Symposium experience. Photo by Jorge Ramos.
We were thrilled to have our external evaluator, Melissa Armstrong, present results from the student survey instrument that we workshopped at the last meeting. The survey has been designed to assess students’ background and their response after engaging with avian biology curriculum, either through a field visit, experiential activity, and/or guest speaker to their course. Our 74 respondents showed that we are capturing a diverse population of students: more than 33% are first-generation college students, and more than 50% self-identified from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. The majority of respondents indicated that their content knowledge and sense of belonging in the sciences had grown from these experiences.
Now in Year 2, students have spent over a year as SOAR interns and growing their research projects. We showcased their work in a rich series of “lightning talks” for our lunchtime session. San Jose State University Master’s student Brad Speno presented his work on Alameda song sparrows as indicators of restoration success, and Stanford Biology student and SOAR intern Maya Xu showed the high concentration of heavy metals in Stanford’s peregrine falcon population. West Valley College (WVC) SOAR interns Donovan Belardes, Eliott Brammer, and Nick Verdi showed how they have improved their campus “for our student, plant, insect, and avian friends” (Figure 2). With support from SOAR, they have offered educational guides, programs, and community events, much of it centered on the WVC campus native plants garden. Julian Tattoni, Stanford ‘20 and founder of the Jasper Ridge bird-banding station, provided an overview of Motus technology to track birds and gave research updates for Coyote Creek Field Station (CCFS) and JRBP ('O'O) (Figure 2). Stanford Biology student Marty Freeland shared the new mob survey methodology he is testing at JRBP ('O'O).
Figure 2. Left: WVC SOAR Interns Nick Verdi, Eliott Brammer, and Donovan Belardes share the capacity they have built for education, outreach, and data collection with their campus community. Right: PhD student Julian Tattoni from UC Davis present their research on northern flicker movement ecology. Photos by Jorge Ramos.
Our lightning talks concluded with our partners’ innovative approaches to involve students in experiential learning and research in avian biology. SCU Professor Justen Whittall leverages students’ interest in biotech to introduce them to molecular biology research with bird populations. WVC Biology Instructor Michelle Geary worked with students to combine citizen science and CCFS bird banding data to evaluate change to local American goldfinch populations. Her team of “bird nerds” went on to present their results at the Ecological Society of America Annual meeting in 2022!
After our lunchtime lightning talks, we did concurrent small sessions to split attendees by career stage. Students and SOAR interns shared dessert, networked, and went for a short walk. Partners workshopped a proposal and budget that Esther Cole Adelsheim (Stanford Conservation) and Elizabeth Howard (Director of the Younger Lagoon Reserve at University of California - Santa Cruz) developed for a short course on field skills. Partners were forthcoming with feedback, and excited at the possibility of recommending students from their home institution for the course. The SOAR Professional Development Short Course has since been funded by the Stanford Community Engagement Impact Grant program, and will take place this spring at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve.
Figure 3. Map of SOAR partners located in the South San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S.A., an important sector of the Pacific Flyway. Field stations and Motus towers provide critical infrastructure to study ~200 migratory bird species. Background map created in ArcGIS Pro software by ESRI with photo credits to (counter-clockwise from top) Trevor Hébert, Jorge Ramos, Michelle Geary, and Joey Hernandez-Mena.
As we approached the wrap-up of our meeting, new ideas to collaborate and grow the network (Figure 3) and opportunities for students continued to flow (Figure 4). All are committed to supporting a strong intern program, and we’ve seen success in obtaining program matches and additional funds that support more students on bird-related projects and network participants. For students who have been involved for over a year, the impact has been profound. WVC interns expressed their commitment to documenting their knowledge and capacity they have built for the next set of interns. Partners who teach several classes continue to refine their curriculum and innovate ways to incorporate field trips and avian biology content into courses. We’ve also built ways to measure our reach and show our efficacy with data, as seen with Melissa's wonderful and flexible evaluation program. We also shared that our reach through courses taught in the network was 300 students in Year 1 - a number that rose to 500 in the Year 2 annual report! These data complement the rich set of positive testimonials we now have from students and partners on how the SOAR network has empowered their success.
Figure 4. Jasper Ridge staff, Stanford summer interns, and Santa Clara University students enjoy a visit to Blue Oak Ranch Reserve in August 2024. Photo by Zac Harlow.
Looking ahead to Year 3, we are excited to see the SOAR Weekend Intensive short course take flight, and the ways that partners keep creating and incorporating avian biology modules into courses. We also look forward to a Year 3 All-Hands meeting at a new location in the Fall of 2025!
If you would like to be involved in the SOAR network and receive updates, please reach out to Katie Glover, Associate Director of Environmental Education at Jasper Ridge.
By Jorge Ramos and Katie Glover
Header picture a Wilson's Warbler (Cardellina pusilla) during a bird banding event with Julian Tattoni and Katie LaBarbera at Jasper Ridge. Photo credit Maya Xu.
Jorge is Senior Personnel for the SOAR project and Executive Director at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma). Read his bio here.
Katie is the Associate Director of Environmental Education at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma). Read about her background here
