Beth,
It is fantastic that you are teaching ecology to younger students. But,
I think you do not need a text book, especially to make it interesting
for the students. First, YOU should have a text book for yourself - and
I recommend Ricklefs, for several reasons, one of which is the extensive
web-based information that you can access. Use that book to guide YOU
and your students, but make them study the topics based on their own
experiences, logic, directed readings from (perhaps) chapters from
Ricklefs and a variety of popular books (Tropical Nature, any of the
many books about Darwin, and so on). Have them research local flora and
fauna using Field Guides from your area. You present them with questions
about how natural selection (and evolution by natural selection) would
work, and so on and so forth. Get the students involved as active
participants in nature - books are too dry. I teach many field courses
and see that most college students (and each year is worse) have no
field experience - they don't even know what common birds (easy to see),
plants (even easier) and other organisms are, much less what they do.
If students started learning about ecology by watching nature rather
than keeping their noses in books, I think they would be better off
(don´t get me wrong, they will absolutely NEED books to help them
understand what they see!).
Cheers,
Jim
Beth Callaghan said the following on 23/Sep/07 12:52:
> Anyone have any recommendations on an ecology text suitable for grades 9-12?
> thanks.
>
> Beth Callaghan
> Easthampton High School
> Easthampton, MA
>
>
--
James J. Roper, Ph.D.
James J. Roper
Ecologia e Dinâmicas Populacionais
de Vertebrados Terrestres
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