Current educational reform calls for increased integration between science and mathematics to overcome the shortcomings in students' quantitative skills. Data Nuggets (free online resource, http://datanuggets.org) are worksheets that bring data into the classroom, repeatedly guiding students through the scientific method and making claims…

Plants and insects share a long evolutionary history characterized by relationships that affect individual, population, and community dynamics. Plant-herbivore interactions are a prominent feature of this evolutionary history; it is by plant-herbivore interactions that energy is transferred from primary producers to the rest of the food web. Not…

Includes a description of a program designed to help students better recognize a wide variety of life forms and understand their important role in the ecosystem. Discusses the program format and observations about the program's effectiveness. A sample natural history sheet is also provided. (ZWH)

Presents an exercise that demonstrates how plants cope with multiple resource limitations in the field. Stimulates students to think about interactions among multiple limited resources and the challenges plants as immobile organisms face when characteristics that increase the capture of one resource negatively impact the availability of another.…

Describes an alternative to teaching ecology by using bacteria to test competitor survival. Students observe a time-dependent selective killing of other unrelated bacteria by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. (SAH)

Presents an activity that stresses the role of fungi and decomposers, highlights the rapidity by which they complete this process, and allows students to experiment with ways to control the rate of decomposition. (CCM)

Presents a strategy to help students grasp the important implications of population growth. Involves an interactive demonstration that allows students to experience exponential and logistic population growth followed by a discussion of the implications of population-growth principles. (JRH)

Examines the ideal ecology curriculum in terms of education rationale, goals, and content. Reviews available data sources with regard to environmental education. (KHR)

Discusses the history of human ecology, providing a definition of this area of study. Also discusses human ecosystems as applied ecology and the values and ethics of the human environment. (JN)

Describes a bioassay laboratory exercise designed to introduce students to both acute and chronic bioassay procedures. Reinforces ecological principles and provides opportunities for students to use knowledge learned in the classroom in a realistic and ecologically-relevant situation. Contains 11 references. (JRH)

Discusses the impact that three ecologists had on the poetry of Gary Snyder. Provides examples of Snyder's poetry in which the ecological concepts of the food chain, succession, the biology of loops, and networks are illustrated. (MDH)

Describes how the basic principles of energy flow and matter recycling can be incorporated into a framework around which many classes, courses and perhaps curricula could be designed. (LS)

Describes the benefits and adverse effects of insects and concludes that the benefits outweigh the adverse effects. (LS)

Describes a botany course using active learning and the scientific method in which students learn how to use classification keys and study angiosperm taxonomy. (Contains 14 references.) (YDS)