Posted 31 Oct 2016 / 0
It’s that time of year again. Once again I send my students in my Ecology course out to estimate their ecological footprints, so to show that I am holding myself to a similar standard — and to make sure to keep myself ecologically self-aware — I always make sure to make my own footprint public. This should Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Ecological Footprinting, Ecology Education, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Habitat Destruction, MSCI-270, Ecology, Pollution, Sustainability, Teaching Tools
Posted 31 Oct 2016 / 0
The New York Times “We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Climate Change, We Need a Revolution” I am excited about this opinion piece by my friend and colleague Eric S. Godoy. He and his co-author Aaron Jaffe are absolutely right: as much as we might “fight” to “capture” the right metaphor for the “battle” against climate Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Climate Change, Cooperation, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Philosophy, Public Outreach, Public Policy, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Social Dilemmas
Posted 22 Oct 2016 / 0
A still of Josh Fox in Beijing from his newest documentary, How to Let Go of the World. All in all it was an ambitious evening. I am not sure of how it came that Pratt was able to host a visit from Josh Fox, documentary filmmaker, after a screening of his newest movie How to Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Cultural Evolution, Envirolutions, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Population Pressure, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Talks & Seminars
Posted 18 Oct 2016 / 0
I am excited to be one of the Pratt faculty members who will be on hand at the first annual Sustainability Summit sponsored by the Student Government Association and Envirolutions club. The Summit takes place this Thursday (October 20th, 2016) from 5:30-10 pm in Higgins Hall Auditorium. There will be a screening of the Josh Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Envirolutions, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Sustainability
Posted 10 Oct 2016 / 0
Image of students taking an online exam at the turn of the century courtesy of Michael Surran via Wikimedia Commons I think that any teacher who is honest about their relationship with their students realizes that they are not completely impartial. Given how much you can get to know your students — especially if you require Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Ethics, Learning Management Systems, Teaching
Posted 10 Oct 2016 / 0
I am excited to have been asked to guide an informal exploration of some of the potential behind Moodle, the platform for Pratt’s Learning Management System (LMS). I will be sharing some of the ways that I tackle teaching challenges using the LMS and will then will allow participants at this lunch to play “stump the chump” Read More
A Major Post, Educational Technology, Learning Management Systems, Pratt Institute, Teaching
Posted 29 Aug 2016 / 0
I am very excited to have an article that I wrote on the adaptive nature of adolescent behavior featured in a new culture series in the This View of Life (TVoL) online magazine. My piece, entitled “Adolescent behavior doesn’t make sense (except in the light of cultural evolution)” summarizes an argument that has been rolling around in Read More
A Major Post, Behavior, Cultural Evolution, Development, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Mismatch theory, My publications, Neuroscience, Psychological Adaptation, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and Reproduction, Sexual Competition, Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution, Web
Posted 18 Aug 2016 / 0
For the most part I am like most of my colleagues: there are about a hundred things — some less than glorious — that I would rather do than analyze my semesterly course evaluations. But for whatever reason, I feel compelled to do so, especially given that in recent years my course evaluations have been Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Course Evaluations, Higher Education, MSCI-260, Evolution, MSCI-270, Ecology, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Teaching
Posted 24 May 2016 / 0
In my eyes, the best thing that a teacher can do is to broaden the future possibilities of their students. As students, we don’t always understand how — or even that — our best teachers open up our minds to a wider and richer road ahead. And even as teachers, we can’t be at all Read More
A Major Post, Biography, Biology (general), Experiments (General), Higher Education, Science as a career, Teaching
Posted 10 May 2016 / 0
One of the activities that I regularly have my students complete in my Evolution course is called “Future Evolution“. The activity sends students on what most evolutionary biologists consider a fool’s errand: to try to predict the future evolution of some particular trait in some particular species. Making such predictions is really difficult for these basic reasons: Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Animal Domestication, Anthropogenic Change, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolution Education, Human Evolution, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-260, Evolution, Prediction, Resistance Evolution in Parasites
