Field and Laboratory Equipment for an Undergraduate Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program in the Caribbean.

最近收购了一套核心的生态仪器，使本系有可能扩大其高级课程，并扩大其面向学生的研究项目的范围。因此，这一发展项目构成了大学正在进行的强调科学的计划的组成部分。这个项目的具体影响是对生态和环境科学的本科生教学。目前学生可使用的新资源包括海洋实地测试套件、便携式电导率/盐度计、溶解氧和生物需氧量测试仪、岩心采样器和电子土壤测试实验室、记录气象站、空气质量监测设备，以及用于研究从现场带来的环境样本以进行更严格分析的先进实验室仪器。这一改进将使大学毕业生做好更好的准备，毕业后将能够更好地在专业层面上发挥作用。特别是加勒比地区和整个热带美洲迫切需要训练有素的生态学家，以帮助遏制目前森林覆盖、土壤和生物多样性等自然资源的灾难性损失，并帮助应对这种损失的影响。

The recent acquisition of a core set of ecological instrumentation is making it possible for this Department to expand its upper-level courses as well as to widen the range of the student-oriented research projects it can offer. This development project thus forms an integral part of an ongoing University plan to emphasize the sciences. The specific impact of this project is on undergraduate instruction in Ecology and the Environmental Sciences. Among the new resources now available to the students are an oceanographic field kit, portable conductivity/salinity meter, dissolved oxygen and biological oxygen demand meter, core sampler and electronic soil testing lab, recording weather station, air quality monitoring devices, and sophisticated laboratory apparati for studying environmental samples brought in from the field for more exacting analysis. This improvement will result in a better prepared graduate of the University who in turn will be better able to perform at the professional level after graduation. The Caribbean area in particular and tropical America in general are in urgent need of trained ecologists to help stem the current catastrophic losses of such natural resources as forest cover, soils and biological diversity, and to help cope with the effects of such losses.