Students bring prior knowledge about science to our courses, yet sometimes their information is inaccurate.The Beedlow et al. article [attached] provides a foundation for addressing several incomplete, naïve, or erroneous ideas that have been identified in students’ thinking about the carbon cycle (Carlsson 2002; Ebert-May et al. 2003), what scientists know about the relationship between plant ...
It is not surprising that humans have profoundly altered the global nitrogen (N) cycle in an effort to feed 7 billion people, because nitrogen is an essential plant and animal nutrient. Food and energy production from agriculture, combined with industrial and energy sources, have more than doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen circulating annually on land. Humanity has disrupted the nitrogen...
This January 2012 press release introduces and describes the significance of issue #15 of ESA's Issues in Ecology series, "Excess Nitrogen in the U.S. Environment: Trends, Risks, and Solutions."
This module presents a science-based story to demonstrate how climate determines the global, long-term, large-scale distribution of living organisms; whereas, weather determines the local, short-term, small-scale ecology of living organisms. Life thrives within specific, often narrow ranges of temperature and precipitation – two main players in climate and weather. Using a systems-based approach,...