New Classrooms and Teaching Laboratories for Highlands Biological Station

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Since 1927, the Highlands Biological Station (HBS) has served large numbers of students, researchers, and members of the general public by providing academic and outreach programming, research grants, housing and research space. Positioned at nearly 4,000 feet on the edge of the Blue Ridge Escarpment in the southern Appalachians, surrounded by National Forest land and Wilderness areas, and close by the Great Smoky Mountains Nat. Park, HBS sits within some of the most diverse and intact forest in the United States. HBS has a decades-long tradition of advanced undergraduate and graduate-level field biology courses, and of providing research support. Since 2002 HBS hosted researchers from more than 53 institutions, and visiting classes from over 48 institutions. Their public outreach programming has increased nearly three-fold from 2003-2006; program attendance and outreach requests stand at all-time highs. Despite the large numbers of individuals that HBS serves annually, the Station wishes to do more in the areas of teacher training, professional workshops, and visiting educational groups. The limited functional teaching space currently available at HBS ( consisting of a single classroom and two teaching laboratories) severely constrains their ability to offer more programming. The new instructional facilities supported by this award will increase teaching space by over 2000 square feet. It will have a strongly positive effect on the ability of HBS to meet their expanded programmatic goals, especially in the areas of (1) science teacher and environmental professional training, (2) K-12 and adult educational outreach, and (3) visiting college/university classes.