Self-guided field trips take invertebrate zoology students away from their screens and into the environment for hands-on learning

There is a great importance for undergraduate biology students to study organisms in their natural context. Safety concerns surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic prevented Marine Invertebrate Zoology students at the University of Tampa from participating in traditional faculty-led field trips during the Fall of 2020. Instead, students were assigned to conduct a diversity-focused field trip on their own and report their findings. Here we describe considerations and methods for creating a safe and valuable self-guided field trip assignment for upper-level invertebrate zoology students. These methods are adaptable for a variety of different habitat types and can be conducted with little to no special equipment or training. Students were successful in completing this assignment and found it highly enriching.