The Chronicle of Higher Education “MOOCs and the Arts: A Plea for Slow Education” This article makes some great points about what kinds of teaching are and are not compatible with massive, anonymous, separated forms of education: in some fields learning can come from a well-crafted exercise that involves no other interaction than learner with Read More
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Articles, Higher Education, Teaching, Teaching ToolsInhabitat “The Biomimicry Manual: What Can Sloths Teach Us About Energy Efficiency?“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Coevolution, Green Design, Mutualism, Tropical Forest, WebAt the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, I first learned about a really interesting initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project –now dubbed EnviroAtlas — is dedicated to creating a free, interactive online tool for exploring the geography of ecosystem services. I had the opportunity to check out a beta version Read More
A Major Post, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Climate Change, Computer Science, Conservation Biology, Deserts, Ecology, Ecology Education, Ecosystem Services, Educational Software and Apps, Environmental Justice, Freshwater Ecosystems, Geography, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Information Design, Invasive Species, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Rivers & Streams, Sociology, Sustainability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, Temperate Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Water Supply, WebThe Harvard Gazette “Learning through doing“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Art & DesignJennifer Verdolin, Dylan Moore, and I created the fieldTest simulator several years ago. This individual-based simulation allows virtual animals with the potential to form social groups that defend territories to interact on landscapes containing different patterns and abundances of resources, and is part of my larger research into group territorial behavior. We presented our results at the 2009 Read More
A Major Post, Behavioral Ecology, Competition, Concept Mapping, Department of Mathematics & Science, Ecological Modeling, Group Territorial Behavior, Individual-based Models, Information Design, Spatially Explicit ModelingA colleague of mine, Associate Professor Ágnes Mócsy, just released her first short film, smashing matters: Featuring a really broad array of eminent physics researchers, this film uses the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider as a case study for how funding basic science research leads to social progress. Although I am not predisposed to believing that all basic Read More
A Minor Post, Film, Television, & Video, Grants & Funding, Public Policy, Science in Art & DesignNational Geographic “California Ports Go Green” This is a nice infographic showing that changes in policy can have a big impact on the sustainability of commerce. It is amazing how much efficiency improvements can lower ecological impacts.
A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Information Design, Public Policy, Sustainable TransportationI really appreciate the combination of social play and music that went into this very simple but very rich piece of public art.
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Cooperation, Installation Art, Play, Public Art, WebMishele Lesser, a student who I mentored, just presented her final thesis project Genoscapes. Mishele and I spent a lively semester talking about the meaning of human genetics, a discussion that ranged from very mechanical questions about how genetics work to more philosophical questions about how to interpret genetic data and the potential identity it can Read More
A Major Post, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Human Uniqueness, Mentoring, Pratt Institute, Science in Art & DesignMy academic department is looking to hire a new full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. The job search is extremely broad: we are looking for the scientist or mathematician with the best fit to Pratt and to our department. I am not on the hiring committee and cannot field any questions about the official selection process. However, Read More
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Department of Mathematics & Science, Pratt Institute, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences