Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Cliff, The Rope And The Safety Net: Teaching Through Service Learning, Marc J. Stern

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

One strategy for a service-learning course is basically to push the students off of a cliff, dangle a rope, and hope they can not only find the rope, but also climb back up. This generally means getting students out there as quickly as possible, equipping them with some basic tools and knowledge to make sense of their experience along the way, and seeing if they can put it all together. A different strategy at the other end of the spectrum involves holding the students’ hands throughout the process – that is, being present when they are out in the real …

Pinemap Intern Program: Integrating Undergraduates Into Forest Resource And Climate Change Research And Education, John B. Kidd, John R. Seiler, Martha C. Monroe, Shobha Sriharan

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

The PINEMAP Intern Program is part of the Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation, and Adaptation Project, a coordinated agriculture project (CAP) recently awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). A major goal of this CAP was to use educational projects to both integrate the scientific disciplines and expand the science to students and educators. Our Intern Program is one of the projects meeting this education aim. Our broad goal was to develop a program that will engage undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research, education and, potentially, future graduate studies. Principle investigators …

Faeis – The Food And Agricultural Education Information System, William W. Richardson, Mary Marchant, Eric Smith, Eric Vance, Lisa Hightower

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

The Food and Agricultural Education Information System (FAEIS) compiles nationwide higher education data for agriculture, forestry and natural resources and other related disciplines. Data include undergraduate and graduate student enrollment and degrees awarded, graduate placement, and faculty headcounts and salaries by rank and discipline. Recently FAEIS has partnered with the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs (NAUFRP) to meet reporting needs for the organization. FAEIS is used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in responding to Congressional inquiries to support higher education and related USDA programs. Higher education administrators use FAEIS data in recruiting and benchmarking students …

Student Diversity In The Nau School Of Forestry: Recruitment And Retention Efforts, James Allen

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

No abstract provided.

Participative, Blended And Networked Learning: Meeting Educational Needs In Australia’S Rangelands, John A. Taylor, Patricia M. Andrews

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

This paper reports on the key elements and outcomes of a national educational initiative designed to meet identified learner preferences and stakeholder expectations of the knowledge and skills needed by ranchers, extension officers, Landcare and Natural Resource Management facilitators/advisors for future success in Australia’s rangelands. At the outset, research into the market for learning in rural and remote Australia was conducted. This led to the recognition that the existing courses available to this group did not meet the learning requirements of people living and working in the Rangelands in relation to current and emerging economic, environmental and social issues. This …

Military Veterans In Natural Resources Management: The Veterans Fire Corps Model, William W. Doe

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

There are many affinities between military service in the Armed Forces and careers in natural resources, particularly in jobs involving outdoor conservation and wildland fire fighting. Military members have a sense of service and teamwork, conduct numerous actions under harsh and extreme conditions and long hours, are familiar with dangerous equipment and hi-tech instruments, and enjoy the outdoors. The decade of war since 9/11 and the end of combat operations in Iraq have resulted in numerous service members returning to their communities in search of meaningful employment. Unfortunately, a coalescence of conditions, including the poor economy, has resulted in extremely …

Teaching A Large Field Course In The 21st Century, Paul C. Layden, Robert Coleman

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

Recent enrollment increases have presented some interesting challenges in maintaining the quality of our summer field course for natural resource students. We will discuss the logistical challenges, content and structure of the course and recent improvements made to the curriculum.

Initiatives To Increase Ethnic Diversity In Natural Resources Majors At The University Of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College Of Natural Resources, Bobbi Z. Kubish

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

This session will discuss initiatives the College of Natural Resources (CNR) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) is taking to increase the number of students from ethnically diverse backgrounds entering the college. The CNR has roughly 1600 declared majors but less than 4% are students of color (and 28% female). This poses a significant problem for many reasons. As many are aware, natural resources management and policy decisions are currently based on a small set of experiences within our population, mainly that of the white perspective. As minority numbers continue to increase in the US and our country becomes …

Teaching Natural Resource Economics With Digital Learning Objects: Evolution From Chalk To Digital Ink, Joey E. Mehlhorn, Timothy Burcham, Sandy Mehlhorn, Philip Smartt

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

Over the past 8 years faculty at UT Martin have experimented with various tools to deliver online content to students at a distance. The most common tool used by faculty is the use of a plug-in for PowerPoint that allows voice annotation of slides. These tools are effective at delivering materials that are in a traditional format with the instructor’s recorded voice. However, these types of tools do not allow you to develop dynamic mathematical problem solving examples for students without working out the problems in advance. The natural resource economics course, like most classes is dependent upon the ability …

Outside Inside: A Survey Of Field Activities In The Virtual And Non-Virtual Natural Resources Classroom, Kieran J. Lindsey, Robert Bush

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

When the possibility of incorporating the virtual classroom into a natural resources curriculum is broached, faculty members often will argue that this approach to education doesn’t make sense for a discipline in which future professionals need to walk away from their computers, at least occasionally, and go outside. Similar discussions with colleagues at our own university, and with faculty at other institutions involved in the Natural Resources Distance Learning Consortium, caused us to wonder how and how often field experiences are actually incorporated into both non-virtual and virtual classrooms. We searched the employee directories of 294 U.S. universities to find …

High School Science Teachers And Forestry Education: How Are They Connected?, Shannon M. Fowler, John F. Munsell

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

A quantitative study of high school science teachers in the five state Southern Piedmont region of the United States investigating their attitudes toward and understanding of forestry as well as the extent to which they are teaching forestry concepts was conducted. Specific factors that were addressed include teachers’ attitudes toward the impacts of forest management, specific forest management practices, forest management goals, the forestry profession, and forestry education. The primary method of data collection for this study was a web-based survey and data analysis included calculating descriptive statistics, performing exploratory factor analysis and producing several regression models. Very few similar …

Incorporating A Forest Insect Alphabet And Edge Of Life: Forest Pathology Art Into A Forest Insects And Disease Class, David L. Kulhavy, Charles Jones

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

In Forest Insects and Diseases, a junior level forestry course, students combine knowledge into synthesis and creativity by creating a booklet of a forest insect or disease from either A Forest Insect Alphabet by David Kulhavy and Charles Jones or Edge of Life: Forest Pathology Art by Michelle Rozic and David Kulhavy into an interactive student guide with knowledge skills, reflection, activities and synthesis. Students present a 20 x 20 PowerPoint (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide) and an interactive performance with art, music over their booklets. Students use small group discussion, interactive questions and answers and reviews to complete …

Reinventing Our Educational Models To Train The Next Generation Of Environmental Leaders, Joyce Berry

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

No abstract provided.

Recruiting And Advising Minority Students In Cooperative Land-Grant/Hbcu Programs, Kevin M. Hunt

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

Many agriculture and natural resources academic departments at southern land-grant institutions often have a difficult time attracting minority students directly from high schools. Resultantly, some have developed cooperative programs with related departments at historically black colleges and universities to help diversify their student body. Based on the course offerings at HBCUs, these programs usually require that students attend two to four semesters at the land-grant institution. These cooperative programs provide benefits to program students as well as the partner institutions, but also present unique challenges to advisors at the land-grant universities charged with mentoring these students. The objectives of this …

Factors Influencing Undergraduate Enrollment Trends In Natural Resources, Terry Sharik, Robert Lilieholm, William Richardson

Conference on University Education in Natural Resources

Our 30-year record of undergraduate enrollment trends in natural resources shows pronounced cyclical swings over time, well beyond those for enrollments across all disciplines in four-year U.S. institutions of higher learning. Despite large increases in overall student enrollments, current natural resources enrollments are at about the same level as historic highs in the early 1980s and mid 1990s, and are increasingly dominated by broad degrees in natural resources. The reasons for these cycles are many and complex, and appear to be influenced by the political climate, unemployment rates, changing public values towards forests, a perceived lack of jobs and low …

2011 Research Highlights, Yusheng Zhao

NSTec UNLV Symposium

Overview

•Center Mission and Cluster Tasks
•Recent Scientific Achievements
•Current & Future Developments