Educational Resources: Ecology

TIEE: Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology - a peer reviewed publication of ecological educational materials by the Ecological Society of America.

Ecology Education Resources from Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Meghan Duffy

In my experience, students love watching videos in class, and using them can draw students into material in a way that regular lecturing does not. So, this is an attempt to compile a list of videos that people have found helpful for teaching about concepts typically covered in ecology courses (or the ecology section of courses like Intro Bio). I will try to update this post periodically, especially to fix any links that break or to add new resources. So, feel free to suggest additions in the comments!

What's your favorite ecology textbook? Why? I don't have much to contribute here, because I only teach upper-level courses that don't use textbooks. The last ecology textbook with which I have much...

Welcome to the interactive model of leaf decomposition (I•MOLD). The goal of this project is to explain leaf decomposition and how it relates to the Earth's carbon cycle and climate. This website contains a series of animated lessons about decomposition, an interactive model that lets you predict how different types of leaves will decompose in different climates, and classroom activities about decomposition for teachers.

A new online tool called "Science Pipes" allows students to conduct biodiversity investigations. With this free tool, students create and run analyses that would otherwise require access to unwieldy data sets and the ability to write computer code. Using these data, students can conduct guided inquiries or hypothesis-driven research to investigate patterns and trends--such as the distribution of plant and animal species across biomes or the migration routes of various bird species. (Contains 3 figures and 3 online resources.)

Science Pipes
How are animal and plant species distributed across biomes? What are the migratory patterns of certain birds? With Science Pipes, anyone can investigate a limitless range of questions such as these using huge online databases to learn about our planet’s biodiversity.

Science Pipes, a free online collaborative tool, allows users to access, analyze, and visualize authentic biodiversity data. By creating "pipes," students can effortlessly sort through valuable information, produce accurate charts and graphs, and share results. And it's just as simple as connecting the pipes!

Science Pipes is a citizen science project to empowers users to develop new and valuable scientific results.

The Ecology of Bird Loss project has worked with teachers in local K-12 and university schools in a variety of manners. The Research Experience for Teachers program has funded six teachers from local middle and high schools to participate in field research for a summer alongside EBL field crews, and to produce curriculum focused on bringing field ecology into the classroom. The teachers who have participated in the RET program with the EBL project, along with other EBL members, created a booklet of lessons on forest ecology aimed at students in grades 7-12. This booklet has been distributed to every public and many private high schools in the Mariana Islands.

Interactive map From the University of Maryland to monitor global forest change featured in The New York Times

Results from time-series analysis of Landsat images characterizing forest extent and change. / Trees are defined as vegetation taller than 5m in height and are expressed as a percentage per output grid cell as ‘2000 Percent Tree Cover’. ‘Forest Cover Loss’ is defined as a stand-replacement disturbance, or a change from a forest to non-forest state, during the period 2000–2014. ‘Forest Cover Gain’ is defined as the inverse of loss, or a non-forest to forest change entirely within the period 2000–2012. ‘Forest Loss Year’ is a disaggregation of total ‘Forest Loss’ to annual time scales. / Reference 2000 and 2014 imagery are median observations from a set of quality assessment-passed growing season observations. / Download the data.

This mesmerizing animation simulates a year in the life of carbon dioxide.

Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago until January, 2012 by NOAA

The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory was formed to observe and understand the Earth system and to develop products, through a commitment to research that will advance the National Oceanic and Atmopsheric Administration's environmental information and services on global to local scales.

Researchers working with Google have created a way to monitor the gains and losses of forest cover using a dozen years of satellite images.

History of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years before present until January, 2012. Recommend full screen/HD to read titles. See http://carbontracke...

Quantitative reasoning is like many other skills. It requires practice and an appreciation for the utility of mathematical tools and strategies. Faculty and students in biology must grapple with mathematical models, tools, and insights as they engage in the study of biological science.

A Game to Encourage Continuous and Discrete Modelling of Disease
Dynamics

Ecological Research as Education Network

As I’ve written about in a couple of recent posts, this semester has been really busy. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the combination of field season and flipping the Intro Bio classroom and h...

How many fairies would fly around, if each fairy is born from the first laugh of a child and fairies were immortal?—Mira Kühn, Germany

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