Beth, I second Jim's wonderful suggestion to use the local environment as the textbook for high school students. I know field trips are at a premium, but there's obviously a lot to learn from urban areas too, including the schoolyard. A lot can also be brought into the classroom. I was a Waldorf teacher for many years, and the students themselves created their own portfolios that served as their personalized textbooks on the subjects they learned. They treasure them and refer to them for years. Pressing plants, drawing organisms and habitats, drawing local food webs, population and community dynamics, etc. .... with detailed text from both your guidance and their own investigations from different resource books. Some colleges use a portfolio model too.
The TIEE online journal (Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology) is also a great resource for ideas and exercises, some of which include experience with different ecology metrics and experiments. http://tiee.ecoed.net/ I also agree with Jim's suggestion about how to use Ricklef's book. Another one you might have around as a resource is The Nature Conservancy's *Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States* (2000. Stein, Kutner and Adams, Ed.). It has great chapters you might pull from. I also think it's fantastic that you're teaching ecology in high school. The field of environmental education has been expanding its body of place-based education research, showing generally positive results in achievement. There's an interesting model being implemented in many public schools called the Environment as Integrating Context (EIC) model, with often dramatic positive outcomes in areas across the academic spectrum. http://www.seer.org/pages/eic.html Food for thought. Good luck! Teresa Teresa M. Woods CORES Program Coordinator 25A Seaton Hall Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506-2905 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 785-532-9834 Quoting "James J. Roper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > 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 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Caixa Postal 19034 > 81531-990 Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Telefone: 55 41 33857249 > celular: 55 41 99870543 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Ecologia e Conservação na UFPR <http://www.bio.ufpr.br/ecologia/> > Econciência - Consultoria e Traduções > <http://jjroper.googlespages.com> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >
