This Project Grant award, valued at $874,361 and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), supports research to investigate how plant-pollinator communities have changed over the past 50 years in California. The research team from the University of Oregon will revisit historical data on thousands of plant-pollinator interactions to understand how environmental changes have impacted these critical ecological relationships. The project aims to...
This $300,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program will fund the development and testing of an integrated science curriculum focused on pollinator research for elementary school students. Penn State University will recruit 16 elementary teachers from rural and urban communities serving underserved populations to co-develop and test grade-band specific curriculum...
This $199,049 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology (CFDA 47.074 Biological Sciences) supports research to understand how visits by migratory animals like birds, bats, and insects impact plants at stopover sites during their annual migrations. The primary objectives are to use computer modeling to examine how these migratory animals, through pollination, seed dispersal, and other ecological interactions, affect the growth and spread of...
This $654,761 National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant awarded to the Chicago Horticultural Society's Chicago Botanic Garden division will investigate how bee populations respond to rapid environmental changes. The researchers will use in-situ temperature manipulations and cross-population comparisons to measure the direct and indirect effects of climate change, including impacts mediated through changes in food resources and nest parasites, on vital...
This $300,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports the Biodiversity Outreach Network's IDIGBEES Network initiative. Under the Biological Sciences CFDA 47.074 program, the awardee will digitize over 350,000 bee specimen records and 6,600 images from natural history collections. This comprehensive digitization effort aims to map bee species distributions, identify data gaps, document climate impacts on bees, and establish networks to utilize findings for research, education,...
This $360,000 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports research on the effects of atmospheric pollutants on plant-pollinator interactions and the processing of floral scents. The project will use the nocturnal moth (Manduca sexta) and diurnal honeybee (Apis mellifera) as model pollinators to examine how daytime (ozone, hydroxyl radicals) and nighttime (nitrate radicals) pollutants degrade diverse floral scents,...
This Project Grant award in the amount of $149,636 was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the STEM Education (CFDA 47.076) program. The grant supports a public-private partnership between the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the St. Louis County Library (SLCL) to engage underserved Black and economically disadvantaged adults in the North St. Louis community with STEM learning opportunities. The project will co-develop and pilot a community-focused educational game...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $240,000 provides funding from September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2026 to support research examining the genetic, physiological, and environmental drivers of plant-pollinator niche dynamics across scales of biological organization. The award is made under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to promote progress in the biological sciences and strengthen the scientific enterprise through increased knowledge and understanding of...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $544,492 will fund research at Montana State University from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2025 under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041). The research aims to develop high-fidelity computational models and physical experiments to better understand the structural mechanics of floral stamens during buzz pollination by bees. This will provide insight into how vibratory forces optimize pollen release. The researchers will quantify forces bees...
This $617,025 federal Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) will support the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA) in developing and implementing a three-year research project on building teacher capacity for transdisciplinary science instruction using smart greenhouses. The project will engage 60 teachers and 580 students across rural and urban school districts in three states. Teachers will participate in summer institutes and...
This $1,371,265 federal Project Grant, awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the STEM Education (CFDA 47.076) program, will fund a collaborative effort between the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) to develop and study a traveling exhibit on pollination for libraries across Alaska.
The exhibit, designed to foster a sense of awe and connection to nature, will feature giant flowers and incorporate augmented reality and multisensory elements to engage visitors aged 7-12 in learning about pollination and its importance to ecosystems. The project will evaluate the exhibit's impact on visitor emotions, nature connectedness, and understanding of pollination through interviews and video data collection with 40 families. The findings will be shared broadly to advance knowledge in the informal STEM learning field. Additionally, the project will capture lessons learned from librarians on developing and delivering programming related to the exhibit.