Published Teaching Resources

These resources have been published by ESA’s 4DEE Scholars as a result of the Transforming Ecology Education to 4D (TEE) project, made possible with support from the National Science Foundation.

• Fall 2024 Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) FMN
  Participants will explore, and incorporate, the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) Framework into their undergraduate courses through the modification of Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) related teaching materials. 
  1. 💧 Food Energy Water Nexus Challenge: A Case Study Analysis
  2. 💧 Class Activities to Explore Biodiversity Loss through the lenses of Artificial Selection and Monoculture
  3. 💧 Echoes of Tourism: Exploring the Ecological Effects of Habituation in Alpine Wildlife
  4. 💧 From Field to Fuel: Evaluating claims about fuel ethanol

• Spring 2024: Teaching Ecology for All Undergraduate Audiences
  Participants will explore how to teach and implement the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education Framework to students who will have limited exposure to ecology in a broad range of courses and disciplines.
  1. 🌿 A Deep Dive with Beavers: How Human History & Local Community Structure Alters the Effects of Beaver Activity on Riparian Ecosystems
  2. 🌿 Data-Driven Decision-Making: Antarctic Fisheries
  3. 🌿 Investigating the ecological value of migratory fishes on stream ecosystems in southern Appalachia
  4. 🌿 Malaise Trap Project: Involving Undergraduate Students in Network Science
  5. 🌿 Exploring Microbial Diversity: An Interactive In-Class Assignment for Biology and Microbiology Courses

• Fall 2023: Teaching Ecology with Human-Environment Interactions.
  Participants of this FMN will explore, and incorporate, Human-Environment Interactions (HEI)  into their undergraduate ecology courses through the modification of teaching materials. HEI is one of the dimensions in the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework.
  1. 🐝 Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) Habitat and Ecological Restoration in East Texas
  2. 🐝 HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT AQUATIC LAB (HEAL) CURE
  3. 🐝 Salmon, Society, and Success: A case study on the intersections of colonialism, ecological degradation, and the power of social action
  4. 🐝 Human population growth case study
     

• Spring 2023: Teaching with Figures in Ecology.
  Teaching Figures in Ecology FMN aims to work with educators to adapt published Figure Set education modules from the online education journal – Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology – to incorporate the 4DEE framework.
  1. 🌳 Impacts of high deer density on forest ecology and considerations for developing effective management solutions
  2. 🌳 Applying a Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model in R to assess the effectiveness of a biocontrol for diamondback moths in Kenya
  3. 🌳 Impacts of high deer density on forest ecology and considerations for developing effective management solutions
  4. 🌳 An inquiry-based approach for teaching Type III functional responses in ecology
  5. 🌳 Using RGB high-resolution color imagery for object-based image classification and assessing urban canopy cover
  6. 🌳 Impacts of high deer density on forest ecology and considerations for developing effective management solutions
  7. 🌳 Community interactions of army ants
  8. 🌳 Patterns and processes in landscape ecology: land use interactions with stream fish communities across scales
  9. 🌳 A graphing activity to investigate functional responses of lionfish

• Fall 2022: Biodiversity FMN.
  A joint initiative of ESA’s Transforming Ecology Education to 4D Project (TEE) and Biodiversity Literacy for Undergraduate Education (BLUE).
  1. 🌊 Playing with open biodiversity datasets: case studies using data from NEON, EDI, and GoMRI
  2. 🌊 Building Biodiversity Datasets for Invasive Species
  3. 🌊 Succession Case Study: Impact of Geographic Position on Biodiversity in Mid-Atlantic Forest Communities