Dear Ecologgers, I teach a second year but still introductory ecology course at the University of Winnipeg.
I decided to do a bit of pre-post testing based on materials made available in TIEE. Part of thsi pre-post test is a student backgrounder. I found that 56 percent of my class had not studied either ecology, environmental studies or environmental science in high school. I have no reason to believe that this would be any different in any other University / city / province. Other interesting findings - only 44% produced an entirely satisfactory definition of ecology and 25 percent either confused ecology with environmentalism or were not sure of the difference. Furthermore, presented with a very simple taxonomic question, only 38 percent correctly deduced that a six-legged animal with an exoskeleton, compound eyes and antennae was probably in the class "Insecta". Zero percent could classify my critter to the correct order. Given the critical importance of environmental issues today (not that they weren't always so), I believe that high school ecology should be a mandatory course. At the very least, it would mean that students coming into my class would be better prepared in advance. And the vat majority of the high school students who will never study ecology at any other level would at least have acquired some of the background that they need to become environmentally informed citizens. Afterall doesn't public ignorance underpin the relative success of climate change "skeptics" and creationists? On a more biological note, the ignorance of my second year students about taxonomy appalled me. Surely a precondition for understanding ecology at any level should be a basic mental map of the variety of life. This should also be taught in High School and reinforced in more detail in ourt universities. Cheers, Andy My "Canadian ten cents at parity with it's US equivalent's worth"
