B) Live streaming nest boxes promotes equitable opportunities among students
Live streaming active bird nests may help all students access nature, regardless of the specific COVID-19 restrictions in place in their region or of their specific home situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has universally impacted the daily routines of people from all geographical locations and socioeconomic backgrounds, but to different degrees, making some outdoor activities such as bird watching more or less accessible. Here, we suggest that live streaming nest boxes and teaching lessons centered around these virtual field trips may help to give all students, regardless of their specific situations, the opportunity to experience nature and learn about bird biology.
In Ithaca specifically, playgrounds and children’s gardens were closed for many months due to COVID-19, making it more challenging for children to spend time outside in public places. Despite these closures, Ithaca is a rural college town in upstate New York surrounded by natural areas, and there are still many outdoor spaces available for socially-distanced use. We recognize that limitations on outdoor activities are more severe in urban areas. Before COVID-19 restrictions were put in place, children from urban communities already had less physical contact with nature than those from rural communities. Urban youths are at higher risk for “extinction of experience,” whereby a lack of physical contact and/or emotional connection with nature causes neutral or negative attitudes towards ecological issues (Pyle, 1993; Soga & Gaston, 2016). COVID-19 has likely further restricted urban children’s access to the outdoors; cities have denser populations, making it harder to go outside without risking contact with others. Therefore, though we implemented our program in a rural region, we recommend virtual field trips using nest boxes as one possible solution to the lack of nature access for urban students. All students can participate regardless of their geographical location, promoting equitable learning opportunities and building appreciation for nature.
In addition to exacerbating outdoor access disparities between urban and rural students, COVID-19 may also make it harder for some students to access the outdoors based on their living situations. Students likely face varying abilities to leave their homes due to guardian responsibilities or family health issues. NestWatch’s nest box monitoring code of conduct suggests that children should always be accompanied by an adult when observing bird nests (“How to NestWatch”). This creates inequitable access to the outdoors among young students because some may have guardians who are essential workers, and therefore unable to prioritize taking their children outside on bird watching expeditions. Additionally, some students may be completely unable to leave their homes because they must protect family members who are at health risk. Virtual nest box visits provide all students, regardless of their specific home situations, the opportunity to see wild birds.
Even after COVID-19 becomes a lesser threat, these virtual learning experiences will still provide avenues for equitable learning opportunities for students. For example, students living in urban regions will still have less access to green space and nature experiences compared to those living in rural regions, and virtual lessons with live-streamed nest boxes could continue to provide important exposure to nature for all students.
4. Limitations :
We have highlighted the benefits of using nest boxes as teaching tools during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, but we recognize that this form of virtual outreach has limitations. Virtual instruction creates inequities in and of itself. In order for students to access or participate in virtual lessons, they must have reliable internet access and a computer. When social distancing restrictions are lifted, these barriers could be addressed by encouraging students to go to their local libraries. Funding could also be allocated so that schools could provide each student with a portable computer to take home with them.
5. Call to Action :
We make a call for local institutions and/or research groups to establish partnerships with local elementary schools, such as following a virtual engagement plan as we have described above. Virtual field trips increase access to the outdoors regardless of social distancing restrictions. Even if such a partnership is not feasible, nest box monitoring is possible. Nationwide nest box monitoring programs such as NestWatch allow the general public to contribute to breeding bird surveys through citizen science data collection. Teachers, local conservation organizations, or parents/guardians can install nest boxes at their private residences or properties to create this type of program without explicit partnership from research institutions. The pandemic has made interactions with nature and each other difficult, and we recommend virtual nest box monitoring as a way for scientists to support their local communities and promote connectedness between people and nature during this socially-distanced era.
Literature Cited :
Brennan, L. A., Morrison, M. L., & Dahlsten, D. L. (1999). Influence of vegetation on occupation of nest boxes by chestnut-backed and mountain chickadees. Northwestern Naturalist , 90-98.
Campbell, L., Campbell, B., & Dickinson, D. (1996). Teaching & Learning through Multiple Intelligences . Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Comer, D. R., & Lenaghan, J. A. (2013). Enhancing discussions in the asynchronous online classroom: The lack of face-to-face interaction does not lessen the lesson. Journal of Management Education ,37 (2), 261-294.
Fee, J.M., Betancourt, I., Fitzgerald, J. (2015). Life in a Nest.BirdSleuth . Ithaca, NY: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
“From Box to Branch: 2017 Barred Owl Cam Highlights.” YouTube , uploaded by Cornell Lab Bird Cams, 2 August 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7UB_zv5hz8
“How to NestWatch.” NestWatch , Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2020,https://nestwatch.org/learn/how-to-nestwatch/code-of-conduct/. Last accessed 05 May 2020.
“Life On The Ledge: 2017 American Robin Cam Highlights.”YouTube , uploaded by Cornell Lab Bird Cams, 28 July 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_pxj7u5ytE
Lyman, F. (1981). The responsive classroom discussion: The inclusion of all students. In Mainstreaming Digest . College Park, MD: University of Maryland College of Education.
NestWatch , Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2020,https://nestwatch.org/. Last accessed 05 May 2020.
Pyle, R. M. (1993). The thunder tree: lessons from an urban wildland . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Scott, V. E. (1977). Cavity-nesting birds of North American forests (No. 511). Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.
Soga, M., & Gaston, K. J. (2016). Extinction of experience: the loss of human–nature interactions. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment , 14 (2), 94-101.
Vitousek, M. N., Taff, C. C., Hallinger, K. K., Zimmer, C., & Winkler, D. W. (2018) Hormones and Fitness: Evidence for Trade-Offs in Glucocorticoid Regulation Across Contexts. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 6 (42), 1-14.
Willner, G. R., Gates, J. E., & Devlin, W. J. (1983). Nest box use by cavity-nesting birds. American Midland Naturalist , 194-201.
Conflict of Interest : The authors declare no competing interests.
Data Accessibility Statement : We do not present any data in this paper.
Author Contributions : Jennifer Houtz : Conceptualization (equal); Funding acquisition (equal); Methodology (equal); Project administration (equal); Writing‐original draft (equal); Writing‐review & editing (equal). Rachael Mady : Conceptualization (equal); Funding acquisition (equal); Methodology (equal); Project administration (equal); Writing‐original draft (equal); Writing‐review & editing (equal). Jennifer Uehling : Conceptualization (equal); Funding acquisition (equal); Methodology (equal); Project administration (equal); Writing‐original draft (equal); Writing‐review & editing (equal).
Acknowledgements : Thank you to the fifth-grade students and teachers at Belle Sherman Elementary School for their partnership with us over the past four years. Thank you as well to the other graduate students and postdocs who volunteered their time to help us run some of the activities. Thank you to Maren Vitousek and Michelle Smith for feedback on this outreach program and this manuscript. Outreach materials were funded by a Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Association Grant (to JLH, RM, and JJU) and NSF-IOS 1457251 (to Maren Vitousek).