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Abstract Human‐centered, active‐learning approaches can help students develop core competencies in biology and other STEM fields, including the ability to conduct research, use quantitative reasoning, communicate across disciplinary boundaries, and connect science education to pressing social and environmental challenges. Promising approaches for incorporating active learning into biology courses include the use of course‐based research, community engagement, and international experiences. Disruption to higher education due to the COVID‐19 pandemic made each of these approaches more challenging or impossible to execute. Here, we describe a scalable course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for an animal behavior course that integrates research and community engagement in a remote international experience. Students in courses at two U.S. universities worked with community partners to analyze the behavior of African goats grazing near informal settlements in Western Cape, South Africa. Partners established a relationship with goat herders, and then created 2‐min videos of individual goats that differed in criteria (goat sex and time of day) specified by students. Students worked in small groups to choose dependent variables, and then compared goat behavior across criteria using a factorial design. In postcourse surveys, students from both universities indicated overall enthusiasm for the experience. In general, students indicated that the laboratory provided them with “somewhat more” of a research‐based experience compared with biology laboratories they had taken of similar length, and “somewhat more” to “much more” of a community‐engagement and international experience. Educational benefits were complemented by the fact that international educational partners facing economic hardship due to the pandemic received payment for services. Future iterations of the CURE can focus on goat behavior differences across ecological conditions to help herders increase production in the face of continued environmental and social challenges. More generally, applying the structure of this CURE could facilitate mutually beneficial collaborations with residents of under‐resourced areas around the world. 

Abstract Urban sustainability initiatives often encompass such goals as increasing local food production, closing nutrient loops through recycling organic waste, and reducing water pollution. However, there are potential tradeoffs among these desired outcomes that may constrain progress. For example, expansion of urban agriculture for food production may create hotspots of nutrient pollution if nutrient recycling is inefficient. We used gardener and urban farmer survey data from the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Minnesota, USA) to characterize phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) inputs and harvest in order to determine nutrient use efficiencies, and measured soil P concentrations at a subset of these sites to test whether excess soil P was common. All survey respondents (n = 142) reported using some form of soil amendment, with plant-based composts being the most common. Median application rates were 300 kg P/ha and 1400 kg N/ha. Median nutrient use efficiencies were low (2.5% for P, 5.0% for N) and there was only a weak positive relationship between P and N inputs and P and N harvested in crop biomass. Garden soils had a median Bray P value of 80 ppm, showing a buildup of plant-available P far exceeding recommended levels. Our results show that urban gardens are characterized by high nutrient inputs and inefficient conversion of these nutrients into crops, leading to buildup and potential loss of P and N from garden soils. Although urban gardens make up only 0.1% of land area in the Twin Cities, compost application to these urban gardens still constitutes one of the largest inputs of P to the watershed. In order to maximize desired outcomes from the expansion of urban agriculture (UA), it will be necessary to target soil amendments based on soil nutrient levels and crop nutrient demand.