Distributed Graduate Seminars
What Are Distributed Graduate Seminars |
Articles About NCEAS DGS | Call for Proposals
Engaging Undergraduate Students in Ecological Investigations Using Large, Public Datasets
Landscape Genetics: Developing Best Practices for Testing Landscape Effects on Gene Flow
Finding Common Ground in Marine Conservation and Management
The Role of Marine Protected Areas in Ecosystem-based Management: Examining the Science and
Politics of an Ocean Conservation Strategy
Past Distributed Graduate Seminars
What Are Distributed Graduate Seminars?
Distributed learning provides a training model in which resources and instruction are independent of time and place. NCEAS' Distributed Graduate Seminars (DGS) combine elements of traditional and distributed learning and build on the collaborative approach that is a hallmark of NCEAS' research. These integrated, multi-campus graduate seminars are designed to engage students in ecological analysis and synthesis.
Early DGS at NCEAS emerged directly out of the activities of NCEAS Working Groups. They resulted in multiple publications with both faculty and graduate students participating as first authors, attention from national and local media, and data resources that are accessible via the NCEAS Data Repository. Based on these successes NCEAS has identified DGS as the fourth way to participate in research at NCEAS (along with Working Groups, Sabbatical Appointments, and Postdoctoral Fellowships).
In 2006 NCEAS issued its first "Call for Proposals" for DGS and intends to sponsor two DGS a year. A Principle Investigator can propose a research question with data needs too large for one group to tackle independently. Faculty members at participating universities conduct seminars that address this question. Graduate students use previously existing local or regional data, learning to assemble, synthesize and analyze the data using ecoinformatics tools. At the end of the seminar, faculty leaders and two students from each university come to NCEAS to participate in a cross-site analysis and synthesis, comparing patterns and results from the various locations.
DGS provide students with an experience of collaborative research and training in techniques and tools to acquire, manage, and synthesize multi-scale data. They also provide an opportunity for the next generation of investigators to become aware of the importance and availability of shared data, and to understand the role of ecological synthesis in discovery.
Faculty leaders benefit from the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues at widely distributed universities while engaging in meaningful and creative pedagogy at their home institutions.
Recent DGS Awarded
Engaging Undergraduate Students in Ecological Investigations Using Large, Public Datasets
InvestigatorsMourad, Teresa
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This seminar builds on a preliminary education framework generated at a 2008 ESA faculty workshop, organized to make recommendations to NEON as they developed their education and outreach plan. The new seminar will be instrumental in refining this education framework. Faculty participants at the Summerr 2009 seminar designed undergraduate teaching modules focused on topics such as climate change and polar bears, patterns in bird diversity, and the carbon cycle. Developed with current learning theory in mind, they emphasize student active-teaching methodologies that are inquiry-based and participatory.The modules will be revised over the next year, implemented with students, and assessed. These key issues will be considered in developing assessment tools: (1) misconceptions and anxieties that students bring into the classroom related to data manipulation and interpretation The group will reconvene in late 2010, along with two undergraduate students from each institution, to synthesize their experiences and discuss ways to promote use of data-based experiences in undergraduate science courses. We anticipate that the synthesis and results will be submitted for publication and that the set of teaching activities will be published online by ESA. The teaching activities will provide undergraduate students the means to better understand ecological concepts, and to gain experience in effectively applying quantitative skills to the analysis and interpretation of large-volume datasets. Gaining fundamentally critical, quantitative ecoinformatics skills will position students well as demand for a data-savvy workforce grows steadily in the 21st century. The project will also prepare faculty at minority-serving and small undergraduate institutions in the basics of good ecoinformatics practices, enabling them to seize opportunities that will present themselves when data from observatories such as NEON, rich with biotic data, come online. New teaching tools require assessment strategies. The new teaching activities will be evaluated for their effectiveness in the undergraduate classroom. Participating Institutions Alcorn State University Seminar: Summer 2009 Project: 2009-2010
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With easy access to large-volume public datasets now commonplace, high-quality data are available to investigate many ecological questions and issues of interest to scientists, policymakers, and citizens. Many people, however, do not have the experience or skills to search, use, analyze and interpret these data. The Ecological Society of America (ESA), in close partnership with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), will facilitate a Distributed Graduate Seminar to focus on examining effective student activities and assessment strategies for using large public datasets in the classroom.Landscape Genetics: Developing Best Practices for Testing Landscape Effects on Gene Flow
InvestigatorsWagner, Helene
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This distributed graduate seminar is designed to unite some of the most active landscape genetics groups in North America and Europe. It will draw on the experience of experts both in population genetics and landscape ecology with the goal of providing an integrated overview of approaches for testing the effect of landscape pattern on dispersal and gene flow, a key topic of landscape genetics. Each seminar will start with a video-taped lecture that introduces foundations and methods and highlights points for discussion in local seminar groups. Practical experience applying various methods to selected cases studies will be provided through a combination of computer labs, interpretation of sample output, and paper discussions. Student groups across universities will focus on a specific step in the data collection and analysis process, evaluating the consequences of different choices of methods and deriving recommendations when to use which method, with each group project leading to a scientific publication. The main goal of the synthesis meeting is to discuss how consequences of methodological choices propagate to later steps in the analysis, leading to a joint publication of best practices for testing landscape effects on gene flow. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Seminar: Spring 2009 Project 2008-2010 |
A key objective of landscape genetics is to study how landscape modification and habitat fragmentation affect organism dispersal and gene flow across the landscape. Landscape genetics requires highly interdisciplinary, yet specialized professionals, and makes intensive use of spatial analysis tools such as remote sensing, GIS software and spatial statistics that have not historically been a component of training programs for population geneticists. Even when students receive disciplinary training in several of the involved fields of landscape genetics, educational programs lack the necessary linkage and synthesis among disciplines. This linkage can only be accomplished after experts from each discipline work together to develop guiding principles for this new research area.Finding Common Ground in Marine Conservation and Management
InvestigatorsHilborn, Ray ProductsRebuilding Global Fisheries
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Recognizeing this situation as counterproductive, an NCEAS Working Group is engaged both in defining common ground among marine ecologists and fisheries scientists and, for focusing future research, in identifying areas of continued disagreement. The central question being addressed is: how can we merge contrasting objectives, tools, and scientific criteria among marine ecology, fisheries science, and management into a unifying framework. One of the solutions to polarization is to expose young scientists to the goals and approaches of the various interested parties dealing with these issues. NCEAS, with the support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, will coordinate such an effort by offering a Distributed Graduate Seminar (DGS) that will involve graduate students and mentors from six universities in the research process. Participating Universities Seminar, Project: Spring 2009 |
There is increasing concern among scientists, resource managers, and the general public about the current state of marine fisheries and their supporting ecosystems. Recent scientific progress on this topic has been partly overshadowed by significant controversy about how to assess marine resources and how to address current problems in ocean management. Marine ecologists and fisheries scientists often tend to favor contrasting approaches, and these schools of thought have become polarized over time.The Role of Marine Protected Areas in Ecosystem-based Management: Examining the Science and Politics of an Ocean Conservation Strategy
InvestigatorsPavia, Robert
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Participating Institutions California State University, Monterey Bay Seminar: Summer-Fall 2008 Project 2007-2009 |
Recent reports by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission recommend specific actions necessary to drive advances in ocean governance, including the use of marine protected areas (MPAs) as tools for ecosystem-based management. With coastal development, pollution, and resource extraction pressures on MPAs increasing, national and international efforts are focusing on developing MPAs in the context of the ecosystems, both terrestrial and marine, in which they occur. We will conduct a Distributed Graduate Seminar dedicated to clarifying the role of MPAs as tools for ecosystem-based management. The National Marine Sanctuary Program, one of the primary MPA management programs in U.S. Federal waters, will serve as a vehicle for this exploration. Graduate students from Hawaii to New Hampshire will examine how our growing scientific understanding of ecosystem processes within MPAs, and evolving ocean-observing capabilities, can allow us to manage MPAs as integral components of the ecosystems in which they reside.
Past Distributed Graduate Seminars: Participants, Data and Results
Ushering in a New Era of Functional Ecology: Dynamics in a Changing Environment
Biodiversity, Conservation and Ecosystem Services in Managed Landscapes
Economic Impact of Non-native Forest Pests and Pathogens in North America
Habitat Conservation Planning for Endangered Species
A Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity
Prospectus for an Analysis of Recovery Plans and Delisting
Articles about NCEAS DGS
Andelman, S.J., C.M Bowles, M.R. Willig and R.B. Waide. 2004. Understanding environmental complexity through a distributed knowledge network. BioScience 54(3):240-246.
Boersma, P. Dee and DeWeerdt, Sarah. 2001. Tapping the ivory tower; how academic-agency partnerships can advance conservation. Conservation Biology in Practice 2(3): 28-32.
Savage, Lisa T. 1998. Innovative national graduate student seminar analyzes habitat conservation plans. Integrative Biology: Issues, News and Reviews 1(2): Pages 45-48.
DGS Contact: hampton
nceas [dot] ucsb [dot] edu (Stephanie Hampton)
Call for Proposals
