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这个博客是从施普林生物blog

The answer begins more than a century ago, when an ornithologist named Joseph Grinnell initiated an intensive series of surveys of what is now Yosemite National Park. Grinnell and his colleagues from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at the University of California, Berkeley, spent multiple summers traversing the mountains of Yosemite, collecting specimens, recording their observations of nature, and generating the first detailed characterization of the vertebrate fauna of this region.

Fast forward 100 years. While Yosemite is now a well-known tourist destination, it has been protected from many of the land use changes that have impacted other parts of California. Nevertheless, the climate in Yosemite – as in most of the world – has changed and the park now experiences higher mean annual temperatures and lower mean annual rainfall than when Grinnell visited.

自然历史“大数据” - 广泛的，可免费获得的在线数字数据库，其中包含地理标本信息和大量辅助数据 - 可以创造出新的机会来丢弃传统的静态课堂活动

What effects have these changes had on the vertebrates that live in Yosemite? To answer this question, researchers from the MVZ chose to retrace Grinnell’s footsteps – from 2003 to 2005, they resampled the same transects that had been visited a century earlier. The result is an unprecedented record of faunal change in western North America.

The specimens, photos, and field notes generated by these优胜美地的历史和现代调查also provide an incredible opportunity for students to engage in authentic, inquiry-driven learning experiences aimed at equipping them with the conceptual foundation and practical skills needed to address real world challenges such as climate change.

In particular, natural history “big data” – extensive, freely available online digital databases containing georeferenced specimen information and a wealth of ancillary data (e.g.photos, multimedia recordings, DNA sequence information) – can create novel opportunities for science educators to discard traditional, static classroom activities and to instead encourage students to learn by doing while exploring these dynamic digital datasets.

Innovating and reforming undergraduate instruction in biology

To demonstrate the role that natural history collections can play in innovative instruction in biology, we have developed an educational module built around the specimens and other data collected as part of the MVZ’s surveys of Yosemite. Themodule, which began as part of the AIM-UP! educational network, focuses on two species of chipmunks from Yosemite that are characterized by very different responses to the past century of environmental change.

Specifically, while the alpine chipmunk (Tamias alpinus) has experienced a significant upward contraction of its distribution in Yosemite, the partially sympatric lodgepole chipmunk (T.Speciosus) has undergone no appreciable change in distribution.

该模块从这个简单的初始观察中构建，使用从优胜美地调查获得的数据来吸引学生参与研究不断变化的环境对生物学多个方面的影响的练习。在此过程中，学生遇到了许多潜在的生态和进化概念，他们提出了有关对环境条件的反应的假设，并学习如何提取，组织和分析检验其假设所需的数据。简而言之，他们实践科学。

These features are not unique to我们的模块，那么，什么使使用自然历史收藏的“大数据”特别引人注目？Our experiences as educators indicate that it’s the specimens – even if students do not have the opportunity to interact directly with museum specimens such as the chipmunks collected by Grinnell, they understand that these were real organisms that were documented by real people working – in some case a century ago – to document the biology of a place that can still be visited today.

通过整合基于地点的学习，以询问为导向的活动以及不断扩展的免费在线资源，该模块使学生能够发展新的科学技能，同时了解生物关系的复杂性，包括对人类的潜在影响。由于自然历史收藏集在全球范围内，因此教师可以使用此处提供的基础来开发与几乎占据全球任何部分的生物有关的令人兴奋的学习活动。