Goal of the Oak gall project in this workshop project was to see whether we can approach a novel system and get students to ask good questions. Since few of us know very much about oak galls this projects put us more in the position students are in all the time - poorly known systems. The aim of the project is to see whether instructors can use a novel system to encourage students to ask good research questions.This project is intended to show that it is sometimes possible for students to do a small, but scientifically useful, original field project in a system that is both completely unfamiliar and highly complicated. It is also designed to demonstrate certain biological concepts and processes. We would like to field test this project during the coming workshop. It might seem better to have done the field test in advance with a student group, but while the student group could demonstrate what works well or badly with the project, it takes experienced educators such as yourselves to tell us why. We hope that when the project is tested and modified it will serve as a model for other projects. The initial stages of planning future projects will be the final item in the schedule of this workshop.

A Brief Introduction to Oak Galls (homework)

Because an individual plant cannot flee its problems, it compensates by growing to adjust to the effects of light levels, the availability of water, wind speed, and injury. This is why most plants are so much more plastic and variable than animals, and incidentally, why rows of precisely clipped shrubs always have that spooky, living dead look. A plant is an orchestrated organism, positioning its flowers, shoots, leaves and roots in appropriate places, constantly adjusting through growth. This complicated orchestration is mediated through plant hormones, that tell the tissues how to differentiate. Growth is therefore controlled through a chemical code.

Insects have cracked the chemical code of plants, producing their own chemicals to stimulate grown-to-order structures that both house and feed a larval insect. Since some insect galls on plants appear as irregular, lumpy swellings, there is a tendency to think of galls as plant cancers. If there is an opposite of a cancer, an insect gall is it. A gall is a highly controlled, highly structured plant organ that an insect has designed for itself.

Several groups of insects have independently evolved the ability to cause plants to grow galls. Nevertheless, it is only a tiny proportion of plant-eating species that can cause galls, and within an insect group, for example the Hymenoptera, the ability to induce galls has apparently evolved only a few times. Moreover, gall-makers in a particular group usually have a restricted menu of gall plants. Most gall wasps, for example, \usually attack species belonging to a single genus, the oaks (Quercus), with a smaller concentration of species attacking members of the rose family. Many gall wasps only attack a single species of oak, or a few closely related species of oak. This specialization can go even further: many gall wasps only form their galls in particular kinds of tissue growing under certain conditions in one or two species of oak. All this suggests that getting a plant to grow a gall is a tricky proposition, and that it works best if the behavior of the gall insect and the chemical tool set that it uses are very finely adjusted to specific features of the host plant.

Identification of species in a big group of gall-makers, such as the oak gall wasps, is very difficult. There are probably at least 150 species in Florida, including a number of undescribed species. There is no resident expert on these insects in Florida; in fact there are only a few gall wasp taxonomists in the world. The Archbold Biological Station was fortunate enough to have one of these specialists visit for several months. During that time, the list of oak gall wasps known from the station grew from 9 to 85. Many of these species make highly distinctive galls, and the reference collection of gall wasps includes galls as well as the little wasps that make them. Quite suddenly, therefore, the Archbold Biological Station has become a wonderful place to work on the ecology of gall wasps, because it is now possible to distinguish between the species. To date, nobody has taken advantage of this opportunity.

The specific goals of this project include:

• increase general knowledge of oaks and oak gall diversity, as well as gain an understanding of co-evolutionary behavior
• learn basic scrub ecological processes (e.g. fire ecology, clonal growth)
• learn identification skills and use of reference collections
• use a project that is non-invasive to ecosystem (low impact project)
• capitalize on existing site knowledge - e.g. fire/ vegetation history, reference collections
• students work in cooperative groups
• students research a subject of genuine interest by collecting material new to science.
• students use the scientific method by developing a hypothesis, and collecting and analyzing data relevant to answering the hypothesis. Use exercise to convey the scientific method - can ask a genuine hypothesis.
• Favor application of sampling designs and collection of quantitative data that is of general applicability
• Students will practice presentation of results and evaluate other presentations.

Oak Gall Projects conducted during Feb workshop

Group 1: Mark Brenner, Suzanne Koptur & Bill Wilcox
Title:   Infection rates of cynipid galls on Quercus geminata in relation to fire

Group 2: Jim Beever, Cindy Bennington & Karou Katijima
Title:   An examination of the distribution of the fuzzy oak gall Andricus quercuslanigera on sand live oak Quercus geminata in a burned area: do they cluster?

Group 3: Terry Farrell and Mike Binford
Title:   Hosts as Islands: Gall-forming Insects on Quercus geminata

Group 4: Earl McCoy, Peter May & Brad Bennet
Title:   Exploratory data concerning patterns of distribution for galls on Quercus geminata

Group 5: Steve Mulkey, Renee Brooks & Dan Childers
Title:   Carbon budgets by cynipid galls on Quercus geminata

Did faculty participants (students) meet the goals for this project (above)?
Based on evaluations of the presentations by the facilitator - consensus was that all goals of the project were met.

Oak Gall Project Discussion/Review

How would a project like this work with an introductory course? Or with students at other grade levels?

For my introductory class, I go into the field with my class, wander around, explore and answer general questions. General exploration includes an introduction to the habitat and natural history. Then we go back to the lab and develop research questions. This approach utilizes the collective group knowledge.

Comments: Students need background knowledge. This makes a difference in sophisticated versus naive wandering.

Comment: General disagreement among instructors, my students would nap (goof-off) in the field. This is more appropriate for junior/senior class.

Need repetition of process of developing a good question, then by the end of class students will be able to develop good questions/hypothesis.

Each week in lab my students develop questions at the end of lab. We don't necessarily go out and test them but by the end of the semester, they begin to pose good questions. As class progresses and material is covered then they are given the freedom to develop and test their own questions.

In introductory classes, my students develop hypotheses but with teacher involvement. I conduct similar exercises. However, they are simpler, easier to measure.
I make it competitive. For example, who can find most galls? We start with vegetation mapping. Then students are curious and want to learn the names. I find it accelerates their learning. In general, we explore using competition to get students to look with a more sophisticated eye.

There needs to be consensus in class of what is considered a useful observation.

You have to keep the goal of class or the objectives of the lab in mind. For example, the goal of a non-major, introductory class may simply be to broaden student's view of the world. It's important to keep the pedagogical goal in mind.

Compartmentalizing teaching/learning methods may be harmful. We should think of these approaches (inquiry-based methods) on a continuum from knowledge to critical thinking. Then you teach based on where your students fit into the continuum.

What about the student's interest? In one class you may have biology graduate students and medical students in the same class. The field exercises appropriate for one group but the other could care less.

I find that student's like advanced topics. Especially if they hear about it in the news and can relate it to the real world.

Anyone can be fed information and be able to repeat it, but not everyone can come up with research questions.

We can never assume student's previous knowledge.

Some introduction to taxa is essential.

With students in the field you need to emphasize process, minimal knowledge of taxa is needed.

Need to teach them how to look I the field (sophisticate eye versus naive wandering).

Develop a search image.

How do you evaluate students in individual versus group projects?

I grade the group. Example of an assessment exercise for individuals in large lecture classes I have them write a 5-minute essay on various lecture topics. In lab they do independent student projects. In cooperative learning groups, I have students evaluate each other.

In the beginning of the class or exercise students come up with grading criteria. Develop a rubric for grading.

Use of tag team roles makes every student pull their weight.

Have each student write a short paragraph on their of role in the project and post for the class to look at, keeps students honest and competitive.

I used to have students develop a poster presentation of their findings. Then I hang the posters in the hallways. Creates peer review pressure and students put forth a lot of effort.