Collaborative Research: Envisioning the Role of Natural History in 21st Century Science and Education

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Natural history, the description and understanding of the natural world, is a basis for much of science and education. Lack of basic natural history information limits understanding of many fundamental principles and processes of ecology and evolutionary biology and their applications to environmental problem-solving. This project will support a series of three collaborative workshops that will examine the roles of natural history in research and education, develop mechanisms to increase the availability of natural history information, and improve the interfaces of natural history with research, education, and applied science. This project will result in an assessment of information gaps and priority research areas; suggested procedures to improve communication of natural history among the educational, business, agency, and non-profit practitioners and users of natural history; and a network to expand natural history information and its use. Each workshop includes provision for greater impacts of the activities, including participation by students and post-doctoral scientists, post-conference assessment of impact of the workshop on the institutions of participants, production of podcasts to be made available through the internet, and panel discussions for the general public. The workshops will produce a broad post-workshop initiative to improve the interfaces of natural history with education, research, and environmental problem-solving.