Having taught an Ecology lab that was the companion to an Ecology lecture for majors and non-majors, I can tell you that the two most engaging things we did were:
1) undertook multiple field trips to learn about different habitats - I have found that most undergrads have rarely been on such trips and really enjoy them 2) engaged in a field project that gathered data and used basic statistics (useful for all science fields) to reach a goal - they may not have enjoyed every step of the process, but the majority appreciated applying what they were learning to a real world issue, something lacking in most classes (and, usually, I do understand why)x Regards, Derek A. Woller Ph.D. Candidate in Entomology, and Lab Manager The Song Laboratory of Insect Systematics and Evolution http://schistocerca.org/SongLab/ Dept. of Entomology, Texas A&M University On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Mellor <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Kay, > > My first job out of grad school (ecology and evolution) was advising > biology majors at a large public university. The vast majority were pre-med > or otherwise health focused. They had a requirement to take at least one > ecology course, and for those that were focused on health careers, this was > often their only ecology course. However, several of the ecology courses > did have a health-related course title (parasites, medicine, disease, > physiology, etc) and were often extremely popular among bio majors (some > would say too popular given the ratio of seats to students in many public > universities). This could suggest either a slight refocus of an existing > course, or perhaps a new ecology course that could very easily teach many > core ecology concepts with health related examples. I think many people on > this list serv would agree that knowledge of some core concepts in ecology > and evolution would be very useful among healthcare professionals, so I > think this is a reasonable action to consider. Good luck! > > Best, > David > > David Mellor <https://osf.io/qthsf/> > Center for Open Science <http://centerforopenscience.org/> > @EvoMellor <https://twitter.com/EvoMellor> > > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Kay Shenoy <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Does anybody have ideas on how to promote Ecology among Biology >> undergraduates? We are finding that Biology majors are increasingly >> focused on health-care fields; many students consider Ecology >> “unimportant” for their future careers, and it is not addressed in the >> MCAT exams, so they give it a low priority. How does one increase >> enrollment in Ecology courses, and particularly in schools that do not >> have dedicated Ecology departments? Any thoughts would be welcome! >> > >
