Dr. Brandon Anthony, Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy and Dr. Tibor Kovács (Hungarian Biodiversity Research Society) have been co-teaching the highly popular Environmental Monitoring MSc course for CEU students for the past 10 years. Part of this course involves extensive field work in the Pilis Hills and near Lake Balaton, in which they survey amphibian populations (including egg clutches) in small ponds as a measure of wetland ecological integrity. Analysis of this data forms part of their course assignment, but also contributes to the Hungarian Biodiversity Monitoring Program.
To date, the approach with students has been relatively intrusive in that students must wade through the ponds along set transects to count egg clutches they observe. However, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (also known as drones) is gradually gaining popularity and acceptance by the environmental community, as it has potential to both reduce sampling error and be less disruptive when monitoring the aquatic environment. With the support of a Teaching Development Grant from CEU the purchase of a SwellPro Splash drone, and collecting the registration and permissions from the Hungarian Aviation Authorities necessary for using drones in Hungary became possible for the first time during our 2019 spring monitoring trip. We were able to utilize the drone with the students at the Pilis Hills and Toreki ponds, and capture images/videos of the wetlands. Students were able to observe the use of drones and reflect on their application in environmental monitoring, as well as on general ecological field ethics. The students' stated benefits of using drones include (i) their capacity to cover large, remote, and/or inaccessible areas; (ii) their usefulness in strengthening and validating data; and (iii) their ability to capture environmental change in time-series data collection. We will continue to utilize the drone in next year’s Environmental Monitoring course as well.
For teaching purposes, we are interested in whether the training in using such technology would deepen students learning from a number of perspectives including learning how to use new technology (e.g. technical opportunities and challenges), and how to test the ethical and pragmatic application of technology in new environments (e.g. measuring and reducing sampling error in research design; reducing intrusive impacts of monitoring).
For research purposes, we are looking to extend the drone technology to understand a phenomenon which has, as far as we know, yet to be investigated anywhere in Europe and is only being piloted in Canada, i.e. the pattern and rate by which egg clutches are laid in small ponds during the breeding season. This will constitute student involvement in capturing daily photos above selected ponds to identify and trace the deposition of egg clutches over time, and relate this to pond bio-physical characteristics. Results from such research will not only be relevant for amphibian ecologists elsewhere, but can be integrated back into the course teaching for subsequent years, contributing to the teaching/research connection.
We believe this project will bring CEU students to the forefront of using cutting edge technologies in ecological field research, which will be an additional attractor for the course, the program, and the CEU.
