Ecology Curriculum Reform: Integrating Innovative Teaching and Global Change Technology

生物科学(61)我们计划改革圣地亚哥州立大学(SDSU)生物系生态学专业的课程，重点是通过将创新教学与尖端技术相融合，让生物专业和非专业的学生更好地理解生态概念。三名生态学教师正在合作，将实时全球变化技术、科学探究和实地考察引入一门非专业的生态学课程和六名生物专业的核心和高级生态学课程。在两个外勤站放置了两座专用教学塔，并在校园内设置了一座移动式教学塔。我们的目标包括在教育中加强野外观测站的使用，提高学生理解生态概念的高阶思维技能，以及增加学生对地中海生态系统的理解。该项目采用科学教育方法，使学生能够在课堂上获取和使用大气和相关综合数据，例如全球方案(http://www.globe.gov))和统一数据方案(http://unidata.ucar.edu)，)所使用的数据，以利用南加州大学现有的独特资源。SDSU的适应工作涉及使用：(A)SDSU为全球变化研究建立的最先进技术，以及(B)我们位于地中海生境海拔梯度的两个实地观测站。使用这种仪器，学生可以测量大气中的二氧化碳浓度，以及小气候、净辐射和能量平衡。作为这一令人兴奋的创新的结果，我们希望我们的学生理解科学探究的过程，包括假设构建和数据获取和分析，并根据他们的结果做出科学推断，并以口头和书面形式交流信息。这项加强教育的活动每年惠及约650名学生，包括代表不足的少数族裔成员(约50%在全校范围内)和准教师。

Biological Sciences (61) Our plan to reform curriculum in the Ecology Program Area within the Biology Department at San Diego State University (SDSU) focuses on providing biology majors and non-majors with a greater understanding of ecological concepts by fusing innovative teaching with cutting-edge technology. Three Ecology faculty are collaborating to bring real-time global change technology, scientific inquiry, and field studies into a non-majors' ecology course and six biology-majors' core and advanced ecology courses. Two dedicated teaching towers are being placed at two field stations, and one portable tower is being set up on campus. Our goals include enhancing the use of field stations in education, enhancing students' higher order thinking skills for understanding ecological concepts, and increasing students' understanding of Mediterranean ecosystems. This project adapts science educational methods that enable students to acquire and use atmospheric and related integrated data in classes, such as those used by the GLOBE Program (http://www.globe.gov) and the Unidata Program (http://unidata.ucar.edu), to take advantage of unique resources available at SDSU. The adaptation at SDSU involves using: (a) state-of-the-art technology established at SDSU for global change research, and (b) our two field stations located across an elevational gradient of Mediterranean habitats. With this instrumentation, students can measure atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, as well as microclimate, net radiation, and energy balance. As a result of this exciting innovation, we expect our students to understand the process of scientific inquiry, including hypothesis construction and data acquisition and analysis, and to make scientific inferences from their results and communicate information, both orally and in writing. This educational enhancement reaches about 650 students per year, including members of underrepresented minorities (about 50% campus-wide) and prospective teachers.