Posted 25 Oct 2018 / 0
Back in 2011, I worked with a talented Pratt Digital Arts graduate student name Jean Ho Chu to create a flash-based game that allowed players to explore Robert Axelrod’s seminal iterated prisoner’s dilemma simulations. I think that our game was pretty valuable, mostly thanks to Jean’s many innovative graphic and interactive creations. But culture ratchets Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Educational Software and Apps, Game Theory, Teaching Tools
Posted 04 Jan 2018 / 0
I guess that some people are really good at planning out where they are going with their careers, but for me serendipity seems to play a really big role. Rather than charting a particular course and then plotting my expedition from “now” to “future goal”, I seem to be more apt to catch a wave Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Conservation Biology, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Geography, Higher Education, MSWI-270C, Ecology, Environment, & the Anthropocene, Sustainability, Sustainable Urban Design, Teaching, Teaching Tools
Posted 27 Jan 2017 / 0
Different rates of positive and negative growth create different population trajectories over time In biology, a population is a group of organisms that belong to the same species and occupy a defined land area (or volume of air or water). These populations have the tendency to grow and shrink over time. This is because the rate at which members of Read More
A Major Post, Eco 101, Ecology, Intrinsic Growth Rate, Population Growth
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 14 Sep 2016 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “No, Banning Laptops Is Not the Answer (And it’s just as pointless to condemn any ban on electronic devices in the classroom)” I appreciate this nuanced approach to technology use in the classroom, but I tend to lean towards the “any ban is counter-productive” perspective. I like the idea of being Read More
A Minor Post, Higher Education, Teaching, Teaching Tools
Posted 01 Feb 2016 / 0
Image of the Oxeye Daisy courtesy of Dan F. Myers via Wikimedia Commons Sometimes the web seems better than it actually is. After about three decades of people adding content non-stop to the free internet, you would figure that it would be relatively easy to find well-written, accurate articles on basic concepts in ecology. But Read More
A Minor Post, Eco 101, Ecology, Public Outreach
Posted 25 Jan 2016 / 0
Fundamentally, carrying capacity is a measure of the maximum density of a particular population How many organisms of a particular species can an area support? What determines this maximum population density? The answer to these questions is captured by the ecological concept of carrying capacity. The carrying capacity tells us how many organisms of a particular species Read More
A Major Post, Carrying Capacity, Eco 101, MSCI-270, Ecology, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects
Posted 02 Dec 2015 / 0
A few years ago, I worked with graphic designer Greg Riestenberg to come up with a series of infographic images designed to make several foundational game theory constructs easier to understand. Our approach was to take all the numbers out of the representations, using information design to highlight how the games work and how they differ from each Read More
A Major Post, Evolution Education, Evolutionary Games Infographics, Game Theory, Information Design, Teaching Tools
Posted 15 Oct 2015 / 0
W.W. Norton Company, the publisher of Carl Bergstrom and Lee Alan Dugatkin’s Evolution textbook, have released a demo version of a new learning tool called InQuizitive. This activity leads students through a series of questions designed to test their understanding of phylogenies as well as the rather bizarre and counter-intuitive jargon of phylogenetics. I played Read More
A Minor Post, Educational Software and Apps, Educational Technology, Evolution Education, Teaching Tools
Posted 17 Jul 2015 / 0
Concept mapping is increasingly becoming an important part of my overall approach to teaching. I started out using it in my own research, and quickly realized how valuable it can be as a teaching tool. Because the only real goal of making a concept map is to explore and express understanding of a topic, concept Read More
A Major Post, Community Ecology, Competition, Concept Mapping, Ecology, Ecology Education, Ecosystem Ecology, Information Design, Interactions, Learning Management Systems, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-270, Ecology, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Mutualism, Predation, Teaching Tools
