Ava Rischert

Abstract:

Specimen collections, while maintaining great importance in scientific research, serve as invaluable teaching tools. Siena University’s robust vertebrate teaching collection has largely gone underutilized due to inadequate storage and organization of specimens, along with the absence of a centralized catalog. Over the summer, we fully curated the collection, and we recorded each specimen with their available data in a new online database to be available to both students and faculty. By restoring the collection’s original purpose as an accessible teaching asset, specimen-based learning can be more readily integrated in the classroom.