Natural History Student Awards
Norris Center Natural History Undergraduate Scientific Methodologies Research Award
Offered every Fall Quarter
The Norris Center Natural History Undergraduate Scientific Methodologies Research Award (NC Natural History Award) is for registered UCSC undergraduate students involved in conducting Natural History research or Natural History projects.
Natural History research should be focused on scientific methodologies (hypothesis driven) or environmental studies based methodologies. These could be a thesis or independent research.
Natural History projects can be natural history education projects, outreach projects, or similar.
Research and Projects must relate to the natural world and/or enhance natural history (natural history is the practice of direct observation and interpretation of the natural world).
We support projects from many disciplines, including environmental studies, ecology, biology, education, history, etc. This award of up to $1,000 is being offered due to several private donors to the Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History. Feel free to visit the Norris Center website or stop by to talk with us about your project ideas!
Natural History Undergraduate Scientific Methodologies Research Award is offered every Fall quarter. Check back in the fall for the application.
See Art + Science undergraduate awards for Art + Science projects.
Featured Past Projects
Natural History Undergraduate Awardee: Kailena Carmon and Paige Oniki
Faculty Advisor:
The Oral History and Exhibit of Richard A. Cooley and the Beginnings of the Environmental Studies Department at UCSC is an interdisciplinary senior exit project that focuses on documenting unheard narratives from the formative years of the department. Richard Cooley was one of the founding faculty members of the department, recruited by Dean McHenry because of his unique perspectives on interdisciplinary education and combining political issues with the environment.
Natural History Undergraduate Awardee: Cricket Clark
Faculty Advisor & Agency Advisor: Rachel Meyer and Alex Jones
Environmental DNA extraction from webs of the cave spider Meta dolloff Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is DNA that persists in the air, water, or on a substrate like sediment and cave walls that can tell us more about the unique environment where it was found, including what species live in that habitat. Spider webs are an excellent source of eDNA because they capture free floating DNA in the air and collect it in one place.
Conclusion: Using eDNA as a biodiversity sampling tool is a novel process prone to inaccuracies, but it has the potential to be a helpful method for detecting rare and cryptic species. The web samples detected eDNA, meaning that in the future eDNA from M. dolloff webs could be further studied. I believe this project and future related projects could benefit from a clear standardization of methods to improve accuracy.
Natural History Undergraduate Awardee: Elizabeth Humpert
Faculty Advisor and Agency Advisor: Karen Holl and Ken Kellman
Project: A guide to easily identifiable mosses of UCSC
Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) are all around us: on trees, soil and sidewalks, and on the buildings that we pass and inhabit everyday. Yet rarely are they noticed. However, look closer and you will discover that what once appeared to be a single mat of moss includes many different species. Perhaps they are overlooked as a result of their size — since they are so small, they are easy to miss — or because they are largely considered a “primitive” plant, or, because studies of plants and biology often do not touch on the importance of bryophytes.
However, these perceptions of bryophytes are largely misguided. Bryophytes are one of the most
diverse phyla of plants, with over 23,000 species of bryophytes worldwide. There are over 200
species of moss in Santa Cruz alone (Kellman, 2003). Bryophytes also play a vital role in establishing ecosystems.
This guide aims to provide a basic introduction to mosses and identifying some of the most common and easily identifiable mosses on the UCSC upper campus (and beyond) with only a hand lens.
Natural History Undergraduate Awardees: Dylan Pereira, and Theadora Block
Faculty Advisor: Bruce Lyon
Project: Using Feathers to Investigate Cross-Seasonal Effects of Nutrition
Why traits vary among individuals in populations is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. In some cases, this variation reflects genetic effects. It makes sense that differences in genetics will lead to differences in certain phenotypic traits like body size, but genetic variation between individuals is not the only factor fueling trait variation. Some trait variation is influenced by the differences between individuals in their condition or environment. Not all variation is caused by genetics alone.
Golden crowned sparrows are migratory birds that breed in the far north and winter in the western USA. The amount of gold and black plumage on golden-crowned sparrows’ heads functions as ‘badges of status’ that are used to signal their relative fighting ability to each other. Is feather variation at least partly condition-dependent.
I used tail feather growth rate of individual golden-crowned sparrows as an indication of their relative nutritional condition during the period when the tail feathers grew.
Natural History Undergraduate Awardee: Jianjia Gettinger
Faculty Advisor and Agency Advisor: Karen Holl and Jodi McGraw Consulting
Project: A Field Guide to the Nocturnal Insects of the Zayante Sandhills
The objective of this field guide is to identify nocturnal insects commonly encountered
during Mount Hermon June beetle (MHJB) monitoring. The surveys are conducted using black light traps designed to attract insects that are flying between 8 and 10 pm.
This field guide can be used to clarify distinctions between Polyphylla species and facilitate future data collection on additional taxa during the summer MHJB surveys.
This project took place in the Zayante Sandhills of Santa Cruz, a unique arid environment in the Ben Lomond area of Santa Cruz County that is home to many endemic and federally listed species.
Natural History Undergraduate Awardee: Cassandra Giannousis
Advisor: Regina Spranger
Project: Acclimation temperature affects skin resistance of Southern long-toed salamander
Amphibians are a critically important group of animals in many ecosystems, yet they are also one of the most vulnerable. Amphibians have porous skin (their skin allows moisture to enter and leave), which puts them at risk of dehydration due to increased temperatures and drier weather conditions caused by climate change.
One way to measure the impact of climate change on amphibians is with skin resistance. Skin resistance is a numerical measurement defined as an organism’s resistance to evaporative water loss through the skin.
For my senior thesis project, I measure whether skin resistance exhibits plasticity in response to environmental change in salamanders local to California.
My research suggests that increasing acclimation temperature can cause a response in salamander skin resistance, but that this response can differ depending on how much warmer the acclimation temperature is.
