NSF Award Summary
Title of Project: Long-term Field Studies for Undergraduate Education: A Snapshot in Time
Name of PI: David J. Gibson
Names of Co-PIs: Beth A. Middleton, Gerald W. Saunders, & Farrel A. Olsen
Institution Name: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
City, State, ZIP: Carbondale, IL 62901-6509
Phone number of PI: 618-453-3231
E-mail address of PI: djgibson@siu.edu
Proposal ID No.: DUE 9554807
Discipline: Division of Undergraduate Education
Long-term Field Studies for Undergraduate Education: A Snapshot in Time. A common feature of ecological field and laboratory courses at the undergraduate level is a lack of appropriate field experiences. In particular, field experiences for the most part consists of mensurative habitat studies, e.g., making lists of species abundances from contrasting areas. However, much ecological research and some of the most important conceptual advances have arisen from manipulative experiments designed to meet rigorous statistical standards of replication, dispersion of treatments, and avoiding the pitfalls of pseudoreplication. To address this dichotomy between teaching and research, a long-term field experiment to improve undergraduate teaching in ecology and environmental science is being established at Southern Illinois University.
The long-term experiment is designed to address topics of ecological succession contrasting the effects of mowing and fertilizer treatments in upland and lowland abandoned farm fields. Elementary, Middle and High school pre-service and in-service teachers, and students taking courses in Southern Illinois University's Environmental Studies Program (a minor for a wide range of major degree programs) are participating in the establishment, running, data collection and analysis of the field experiment. The student's are assessing the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of field experiments, and will become prepared to integrate research data and results in an understanding of ecology. Because of this intervention, student's will better appreciate the role of scientific research in understanding the natural world. An important corollary is that the students will be better able to describe and articulate one of the most important ecological processes, i.e., succession.
The improvements to the SIU undergraduate curriculum that will occur following the incorporation of the field experiment into appropriate courses will be a model for other programs nationally and internationally. Dissemination of the results of this intervention will include the production of a video, publications in scientific journals, talks and presentations at local and natiional meetings, and the establishment of a WWW site.