Hello Everyone , I want to thank all the folks who responded to my question regarding how best to design a non-major's biology course. I received a total of 52 responses (both via Ecolog but also direct to my inbox) which included many thoughtful comments on general approaches to non-majors education, text and book recommendations, as well as a few syllabi and course outlines. I am very grateful for all the insight and assistance! It is great to personally see the degree of community that exists among ecologists!
Rather than wade back through the discussion summarizing what was said, I thought I'd simply provide a list of recommended textbooks and other material I derived from the various posts: * "Vision and Change" (visionandchange.org) * "Botany of Desire" by Pollen * "Biology: Concepts and Investigations" by Hoefnagels * "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Diamond * "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollen * "Restoring Nature: Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities" by Gobster * "Cartoon Guide To The Environment" * "The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology" * "The Cartoon Guide to Genetics" * "Campbell Essential Biology" by Simon, Reece and Dickey * "Campbell's Biology: Concepts and Connections" * "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond * "Nature Out of Place: Biological Invasions in the Global Age" by Van Driesche and Van Driesche * "Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity" by Chivian & Bernstein * "Human Genetics" from Brooks/Cole) * "What is Life" by Jay Phelan * "Biology for A Changing World" by Michele Shuster * "The Lives of a Cell" by Thomas * "Future of Life" by Wilson * "Four Fish" by Greenberg Helpful websites: * Action Bioscience: http://www.actionbioscience.org/ * Evolution: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ * Why science is important in the first place: http://whyscience.co.uk/the-film/ * More evolution: http://video.pbs.org/video/1300397304/, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/devitt_02 * On the cutting edge: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/index.html * Environmental Health News: http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org Other suggested media: * Planet Earth dvd series Thanks again, the discussion was very helpful and I'm certainly planning on utilizing much of the approach so thoughtfully sent my way! Cheers, David David R. Johnson PhD. Postdoctoral Research Associate Systems Ecology Lab University of Texas at El Paso drjohns...@utep.edu<mailto:drjohns...@utep.edu>
