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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
It Turned Into A Bioblitz: Urban Data Collection For Building Scientific Literacy And Environmental Connection, Kelly O'Donnell, Lisa Brundage
It Turned Into A Bioblitz: Urban Data Collection For Building Scientific Literacy And Environmental Connection, Kelly O'Donnell, Lisa Brundage
Publications and Research
In 2013, Macaulay Honors College redesigned its required science curriculum to focus on scientific literacy skills rather than content. Central to this shift was inclusion of a data collection event, a BioBlitz, to provide students with the basis for their own semester-long research projects. Students are teamed with naturalists in an urban green space to find as many species as they can in 24 h and to contribute to a global biodiversity database via the app iNaturalist. We have learned two important lessons: (1) developing an interdisciplinary curriculum with a high degree of experiential learning is more successful when both …
Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Env 3009/4900 (Conservation Biology And Sustainable Development), Stephen Gosnell
Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Env 3009/4900 (Conservation Biology And Sustainable Development), Stephen Gosnell
Open Educational Resources
Conservation biology is an interdisciplinary topic that explores how we can protect and maintain natural areas. Due to the resources we take and impacts we have on natural environments, this field is directly related to restoration ecology (restoring natural areas) and sustainable development/natural resource management. We will explore the basis for these related fields from an ecological, social, legal, and cultural perspective, as all conservation and management projects take place in the larger human landscape. We will consider how we measure biodiversity, why it matters, why is it is threatened, and how we can manage (protect, restore, maintain, use) it …
The Use Of Plot Surveys For The Study Of Ethnobotanical Knowledge: A Brunei Dusun Example, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy Ellen, Bantong Bin Antaran
The Use Of Plot Surveys For The Study Of Ethnobotanical Knowledge: A Brunei Dusun Example, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy Ellen, Bantong Bin Antaran
Publications and Research
This paper describes a technique for using plot surveys to measure individual informants' ethnobotanical knowledge of forests, as applied to the Dusun community of Merimbun in Brunei. Two knowledgeable but non-literate Dusun informants enumerated marked plots of both recent and old secondary growth mixed dipterocarp forest near the village. They were able to provide names (other than life-forms or the most general basic and intermediate categories) for 86-97% of species growing in the plots. Between 152 and 170 plant names were elicited by the surveys. In all cases, about 88% of the names were at the basic naming level and …