Quantitative Teaching of Abiotic-Biotic Interactions in Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems

这项奖励为密歇根州立大学凯洛格生物站提供资金，用于购买四件物品：两台基本气相色谱仪、一台扫描分光光度计和一台PH值计。目前，凯洛格生物站的暑期教学计划提供了多样化的生态学本科课程，强调在小组环境下的实践和实地体验。其中几门课程讨论了生态系统过程和种群生态学的各个方面。有了这种新设备，他们将从教学课程中消除将生态学分离为基于生态系统和基于种群的概念，取而代之的是，沿着生物地球化学和营养相互作用的路线将两者结合起来。为了加强这一新的教学重点，他们希望为实地/实验室练习创建一个更量化的框架，说明陆地和水生模型系统的非生物和生物组成部分之间的相互作用。这些仪器将被学生用来量化生物体活动的无机和有机前体和产品、初级生产者的色素以及群落的其他重要的非生物和生物方面。这种仪器使野外/实验室练习成为可能，将为学生在概念上整合两个重要的生态学领域提供一个实际的“感觉”。接受资助的机构正在将这一NSF奖项与非联邦来源的资金相匹配。

This award provides funds to The Kellogg Biological Station at Michigan State University to purchase four items: two basic gas chromatographies, a scanning spectrophotometer, and a pH meter. Currently, The Kellogg Biological Station summer teaching program offers a diversity of undergraduate courses in ecology which emphasize hands-on, field experience in a small group setting. Several of the courses discuss aspects both of ecosystem processes and of population ecology. With this new equipment they will eliminate from the teaching curriculum the separation of ecology into ecosystem-based and population-based concepts and instead, integrate both along the lines of biogeochemistry and trophic interactions. To enhance this new teaching focus, they wish to create a more quantitative framework for those field/laboratory exercises which illustrate interactions between abiotic and biotic components of terrestrial and aquatic model systems. These instruments will be used by students to quantify inorganic and organic precursors and products of organism activities, pigments of primary producers, and other important abiotic and biotic aspects of communities. The field/laboratory exercises made possible by this instrumentation will provide students a practical "feel" for the conceptual integration of two important areas in ecology. The grantee institution is matching this NSF award with funds from non-Federal sources.