My teaching goal is to motivate students to acquire fundamental knowledge for use in applied and practical ways. I design my lectures to focus on basic concepts and use assignments to emphasize practical problem solving skills through both analytical and quantitative means. The courses I currently teach are Ecology (BI 370), Marine Biology (BI 450), and Community Ecology (Z 594).

Ecology (BI 370)

Ecology (BI 370) is an undergraduate course that provides a general background on the interrelationships between species and their physical environment at the scale of the individual to the ecosystem. I explore such diverse topics as the mechanisms cacti use to photosynthesize to the influence of park or reserve size on species diversity. We learn about basic ecological models and the experiments designed to test them especially as they relate to real world applied problems such as endangered species, habitat degradation, species invasions, and global climate change. In particular, goals or outcomes for students include the ability to comprehend, interpret, and subsequently synthesize information on the following topics: 1) Global and regional climate processes, 2) Thermal regulation, water balance, and energy and nutrient capture and transfer in plants, animals, and microbes, 3) Behavioral interactions among individuals 4) Models of population growth, dispersal and metapopulation dynamics, 5) Factors influencing life history variation among species, 6) Models of negative and positive species interactions at both trophic and non-trophic levels, 7) Influence of disturbance and physical stress on ecological processes such as succession, 8) Theories important to species diversity, food webs, productivity, and stability, and 9) Human influences on ecological processes.

Marine Biology (BI 450)

Marine Biology (BI 450) is an intensive, term–long course based at Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC). The course is divided into 7 topics or sections taught by different instructors that include 1) coastal geology and oceanography, 2) marine invertebrate biology and natural history, 3) marine fish biology and natural history, 4) marine algae and natural history, 5) marine conservation and policy, 6) marine community ecology, and 7) small group research projects. The material is presented in a variety of ways including lectures, discussions, laboratory work, and field trips. The final 2 weeks is devoted to a culminating research project involving a proposal, presentation, and paper. The students maintain a blog during the course located at: http://www.marinebio450.blogspot.com/

Community Ecology (Z 594)

Community Ecology (Z 594) is a graduate course co–taught with Dr. Bruce Menge and focuses on conceptual issues in community ecology. After a survey of important patterns in communities, we consider the biological and physical processes and conditions which produce pattern. Issues considered include community structure, species interactions, environmental context, community regulation, food web structure, community change in space and time, meta-communities and meta-ecosystems, and species diversity gradients. The approach involves considering an issue, examining the theory behind that issue, and evaluating explanatory hypotheses using relevant empirical information. Examples are taken from all major habitats (terrestrial, freshwater, marine), although the emphasis is on the concepts, not the system.