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

自然历史是对自然世界的描述和理解，是许多科学和教育的基础。缺乏基本的自然历史信息限制了对生态学和进化生物学的许多基本原理和过程的理解，以及它们在解决环境问题方面的应用。该项目将支持一系列的三个合作研讨会，这些研讨会将研究自然历史在研究和教育中的作用，制定机制以增加自然历史信息的可用性，并改善自然历史与研究、教育和应用科学的接口。该项目将导致对信息差距和优先研究领域的评估；建议如何改善教育界、商界、机构、非牟利的自然历史从业者和使用者之间的自然历史交流；以及一个扩大自然历史信息及其使用的网络。每个研讨会都包括对活动产生更大影响的规定，包括学生和博士后科学家的参与，会后评估研讨会对参与者机构的影响，制作通过互联网提供的播客，以及面向公众的小组讨论。讲习班将产生一个广泛的讲习班后倡议，以改善自然历史与教育，研究和环境问题解决的接口。

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.