Academic integrity establishes a code of ethics that transfers over into the job force and is a critical characteristic in scientists in the twenty-first century. A student’s perception of cheating is influenced by both internal and external factors that develop and change through time. For students, the COVID-19 pandemic shrank their academic and social environments onto a computer screen. We surveyed science students in the United States at the end of their first COVID-interrupted semester to understand how and why they believed their peers were cheating more online during a pandemic. Almost 81% of students indicated that they believed cheating occurred more frequently online than in-person. When explaining why they believed this, students touched on proctoring, cheating influences, and extenuating circumstances due to COVID-19. When describing how they believed cheating occurred more frequently online, students touched on methods for cheating and surreptitious behavior. The student reasonings were associated with four theories (game theory, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, neutralization theory, and planned behavior theory) that have been used to examine academic dishonesty. Our results can aid institutions in efforts to quell student concerns about their peers cheating during emergencies. Interestingly, most student beliefs were mapped to planned behavior theory while only a few students were mapped to neutralization theory, suggesting it was a novel modality of assessment rather than a pandemic that shaped student perceptions.

The variability in zooplankton fatty acid composition may be an indicator of larval fish habitat quality as fatty acids are linked to fish larval growth and survival. We sampled an anadromous fish nursery, the Chowan River, during spring of 2013 in order to determine how the seston fatty acid composition varied in comparison with the zooplankton community composition and fatty acid composition during the period of anadromous larval fish residency. The seston fatty acid profiles showed no distinct pattern in relation to sampling time or location. The mesozooplankton community composition varied spatially and the fatty acid profiles were typical of freshwater species in April. The Chowan River experienced a saltwater intrusion event during May, which resulted in brackish water species dominating the zooplankton community and the fatty acid profile showed an increase in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), in particular eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The saltwater intrusion event was followed by an influx of freshwater due to high precipitation levels in June. The zooplankton community composition once again became dominated by freshwater species and the fatty acid profiles shifted to reflect this change; however, EPA levels remained high, particularly in the lower river. We found correlations between the seston, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton fatty acid compositions. Salinity was the main factor correlated to the observed pattern in species composition, and fatty acid changes in the mesozooplankton. These data suggest that anadromous fish nursery habitat likely experiences considerable spatial variability in fatty acid profiles of zooplankton prey and that are correlated to seston community composition and hydrodynamic changes. Our results also suggest that sufficient prey density as well as a diverse fatty acid composition is present in the Chowan River to support larval fish production.

Citizen science projects can be used in college laboratory settings to allow students to gain hands-on experience in research during emergency remote learning. During the 2020 spring semester, we used the citizen science project, Budburst, in our introductory biology laboratory during the COVID-19-induced emergency remote learning period. The instructors were able to quickly adapt the project for emergency remote teaching because of the versatility of citizen science projects. The goals of this paper are to describe the project the students completed and to determine which data literacy and scientific writing skills were gained through the process. The students were provided with the research question: "How does temperature affect the phenophases of your trees?" Students collected their own data and downloaded Budburst data sets from the website to compare between years and to connect their results to long-term temperature data sets. The final project was a scientific paper based on their findings from both data sets. After the semester, a subset of papers was scored by two researchers using a previously validated rubric designed to evaluate students' research skills. We evaluated students' higher-order thinking by investigating their ability to develop a prediction statement, and to improve their qualitative skills by developing graphs, statements on the limitations for methods and results, and alternative explanations for their findings. We saw that using citizen science during remote teaching enabled the students to gain authentic research experiences and continue to improve their skill set even if they could not be in the laboratory.