As part of a biodiversity survey in the BIOL323 introductory mycology course last term, students identified and illustrated fungi that they collected from the UBC Farm. Students were then tasked to create informational slides to present these local fungi species to the public. The resulting slideshow presentation will be displayed in the Beaty Museum at the beginning of the “Earth Timeline” exhibit from Jan 28 – Apr 30.
BIOL323 instructor Brett Couch designed the “mushroom presentation project” in collaboration with Beaty Museum staff members Yukiko Stranger-Galey (Exhibits Manager) and Derek Tan (Digital Media Specialist). This type of project allows students to participate in science education and communication, and is particularly well suited to collections-based courses in Botany and Zoology.
The Beaty Museum is interested in projects from other courses. Based on this project, Derek and Yukiko have developed a slide template and instructions for formatting presentations to be displayed in the museum. Feel free to contact Brett Couch (bcouch@mail.ubc.ca), Yukiko Stranger-Galey (yukiko.strangergaley@ubc.ca) or Derek Tan (derek.tan@beatymuseum.ubc.ca) if you are interested in implementing a similar type of project in your course.