The current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted most aspects of daily life, including but not limited to educational instruction. Because of state and federal quarantine orders, colleges and universities around the world have been relegated to providing virtual instruction rather than face-to-face education. Traditional face-to-face pedagogical approaches (e.g., lecture-based approach) are likely ineffective in fully engaging students in an online setting (Garrison, 2003; Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012). Thus, to deliver content effectively,

The current COVID-19 pandemic has forced the global higher education community to rapidly adapt to partially-or fully-online course offerings. For field-or lab-based courses in ecological curricula, this presents unique challenges. Fortunately, a diverse set of active learning techniques exist, and these techniques translate well to online settings. However, limited guidance and resources exist for developing, implementing, and evaluating active learning assignments that fulfil specific objectives of ecologyfocused courses. To address these informational gaps, we (1) identify broad learning objectives across a variety of ecology-focused courses, (2) provide examples, based on our collective online teaching experience, of active learning activities that are relevant to the identified ecological learning goals, and (3) provide guidelines for successful implementation of active learning assignments in online courses. Using The Wildlife Society's list of online higher education ecology-focused courses as a guide, we obtained syllabi from 45 ecology-focused courses, comprising a total of 321 course-specific learning objectives. We classified all course-specific learning objectives into at least one of five categories: (1) Identification, (2) Application of Concepts/Hypotheses/Theories, (3) Management of Natural Resources, (4) Development of Professional Skills, or (5) Evaluation of Concepts/Practices. We then provided two examples of active learning activities for each of the five categories, along with guidance on their implementation in online settings. We suggest that, when based on sound pedagogy, active learning techniques can enhance the online student's experience by activating ecological knowledge; moreover, active learning techniques should also be incorporated into in-person offerings once the current COVID-19 crisis has abated.

Increased generation of waste, production of plastics, and poor environmental stewardship has led to an increase in floating litter. Significant efforts have been dedicated to mitigating this globally relevant issue. Depending on the location of floating litter, removal methods would vary, but usually include manual cleanups by volunteers or workers, use of heavy machinery to rake or sweep litter off beaches or roads, or passive litter collection traps. In the open ocean or streams, a common passive technique is to use booms and a collection receptacle to trap floating litter. These passive traps are usually installed to intercept floating litter; however, identifying the appropriate locations for installing these collection devices is still not fully investigated. We utilized four common criteria and fifteen sub-criteria to determine the most appropriate setup location for an in-stream collection device (Litter Gitter—Osprey Initiative, LLC, Mobile, AL, USA). Bayesian Network technology was applied to analyze these criteria comprehensively. A case study composed of multiple sites across the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coast was used to validate the proposed approach, and propagation and sensitivity analyses were used to evaluate performance. The results show that the fifteen summarized criteria combined with the Bayesian Network approach could aid location selection and have practical potential for in-stream litter collection devices in coastal areas.