Educational Philosophy

I truly enjoy teaching at many levels from large lecture courses to small discussion or lab groups. Combining these two forms of instruction provides an effective way to adjust both the message and the level of education to the needs, interest, and motivation of a diverse student body. Small class settings provide an environment where the infusion of fresh ideas and perspectives can generate exciting and sometimes novel understanding for everyone involved. These small groups are not necessarily efficient ways to address the need for greater scientific and ecological literacy among the general student population. Many citizens are unable to make informed decisions because they lack a basic understanding of science and the scientific method. I believe that good undergraduate courses in the ecological sciences are a critical tool for teaching science and the scientific process to the next generation of resource managers, scientists, decision makers, and voters.

UCSB Courses

University of California, Santa Barbara:

EEMB 120 Introduction to Ecology: Covers major concepts in population and evolutionary ecology, theoretical, experimental, and field studies pertaining to population growth and regulation, competition, predation, diversity, adaptation, and life history strategies.

EEMB 152 Applied Marine Ecology: Introduction to the application of ecological principles and methods to environmental problem solving in marine habitats. Focus on problems that are local, regional, and global in scale. Concepts illustrated with case studies.

Oregon State University:

Marine Biology: 1992-1996

The marine biology course at Oregon State University is taught at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon during the spring term of each year. The course covers marine algae, marine invertebrates, intertidal and coastal ecology, oceanography, marine conservation, marine fishes, birds and mammals. The students have hands-on experience learning about these organisms in the lab and field.

Teaching Assistant:

University of Notre Dame

Practical Aquatic Biology (1988)

 

Oregon State University

General Zoology (1988-1989)

Natural History of Invertebrates (1989)

Phycology (1990, 1991)

Marine Ecology (1991, 1992, 1993)

Anatomy and Physiology (1992)

Improving Scientific Education

Planet earth from space

Quality science education is essential in preparing students to participate in an increasingly technologically oriented society. Learning skills necessary for data analysis, synthesis and interpretation is an integral part of this educational process. For a variety of reasons, our national education system is not meeting these goals. My goals is to help develop these data literacy skills among the undergraduate population in the realm of earth and ocean science. I am collaborating with researchers at UCSB, University of Wisconsin and the New Media Studios to develop easy to use software to enable hands-on experience for students working with large data sets from a variety of real-time, web-based sources.