CCLI: The C. Hart Merriam Elevational Gradient: Toward a Unified Ecology Curriculum
at Northern Arizona University
National Science Foundation
Collaborators: Neil Cobb, George Koch, Tom Whitham
Project Summary: This project will develop an integrated, field-based ecology curriculum at Northern Arizona University that will involve undergraduate students (freshmen to seniors) in state-of-the art research in population, community, and ecosystem ecology. The core of this project is a new field-based quantitative laboratory for General Ecology, BIO 326, a course now required by all majors in Biology, in which students will conduct research along a 3000m elevational gradient spanning desert to tundra ecosystems as a natural experiment. Additionally, this project will enhance introductory biology courses (Introductory Biology and Unity of Life) by adding field exercises along the gradient, which will introduce students to the experimental system they will revisit more comprehensively in General Ecology. The project will also add advanced exercises involving the gradient to existing laboratories of a number of upper division courses in ecology (Entomology, Plant Physiology, Mammalogy, Microbial Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Stable Isotope Techniques, Field Ecology). Thus, this project will substantially revise and will provide a unifying theme to the ecology curriculum at Northern Arizona University: Students will visit the same sites in different courses and in different years. They will learn how the same systems and gradients can be approached from different perspectives and used to address some of the major ecological, environmental and conservation challenges of our time. This proposal requests funds to purchase the equipment required to carry out these integrated laboratories in ecology.