RCN UBE: Connectomes for Undergraduate Education and Learning (CUNEL)

While it is understood that students experience tremendous educational benefits from exposure to authentic research as part of their undergraduate coursework, the availability of these experiences may be limited by high cost and difficult implementation. The Connectomes for Undergraduate Neuroscience Education and Learning (CUNEL) project seeks to provide students with access to cutting-edge neuroscience research tools and provide the framework to integrate these tools into their undergraduate education.

The CUNEL project will accomplish this by recruiting and training a network of neuroscience instructors who will implement and assess laboratory protocols that provide authentic research experiences in connectomics, the burgeoning field of neuroscience that seeks to create comprehensive maps of synaptic connectivity, the ‘wiring diagram’ showing how nerves connect within a nervous system. The broad outcome of the CUNEL project will be to enhance both the quality and accessibility of neuroscience education, while providing undergraduate students with real-world scientific experience within an area of neuroscience at the forefront of the field.

The CUNEL project will create, implement, and assess undergraduate laboratory materials that make use of the publicly available Female Adult Fly Brain (FAFB) dataset and Collaborative Annotation Toolkit for Massive Amounts of Image Data (CATMAID) software platform. The CUNEL team will create instructional materials that facilitate adoption, implementation, and assessment of FAFB/CATMAID laboratory modules in undergraduate classes at diverse undergraduate institutions.

These modules will be disseminated and assessed through a user network of neuroscience instructors who will be recruited, supported, and coordinated by the project leadership. Students who work with laboratory materials created by the CUNEL project will have opportunities to engage scientifically with students at other network institutions and with the connectomics research community.

The outcomes of this project will include: 1) the creation of laboratory materials that can be successfully implemented at a wide variety of undergraduate institutions to provide authentic research experiences in connectomics as part of undergraduate coursework, and 2) the creation and organization of a network of neuroscience educators who will collaborate to enhance neuroscience education using these authentic research tools.

This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.