Using Fred’s Ecology and Environmental Tales in the classroom

Greetings!  My intent is that instructors will use my blog to stimulate classroom activities.  You can approach this in several different ways.  Here are a few suggestions (which can be modified for individuals, small groups, or the entire class) – I’d love to know how classroom activities using the blog are working out for you!

Approach 1.  Assign a particular blog as a reading assignment; you can then base a classroom discussion on Question Set 1 below.

Approach 2: Part way through your class, take a break and give students 15 minutes to read a particular blog.  They will need some type of electronic device to do this.  You can then base a classroom discussion based on Question Set 1 below.

Approach 3: Have an online chat session with students based on Question Set 1 below.

Approach 4. Combine the blog and the original paper in interesting ways.  One approach is to assign the blog and Question Set 1 for homework, and then assign the original paper in conjunction with Question Set 2.

 Question Set 1

1. What is the major take-home point of the study? Why is this important?
2. For each figure and data table in the blog, do the following: (a) describe what the data show, (b) discuss how confident you are about your answer to question 2a.
3. What assumptions do the authors make, based on the information you are given?
4. What do you think is missing from this study – what do you think the researchers should do next?

Question Set 2

1. How do the blog and original paper differ stylistically?
2. Do the authors deal with the assumptions that you described in question 3 above? How?
3. What other assumptions do the authors make?
4. What was the biggest methodological challenge in doing the study, and how was it resolved?
5. For specific figures and data tables in the blog, do the following: (a) describe what the figures/tables show, (b) describe how confident you are about your answer to question 5a.
6. What conclusions do the researchers make? Are these conclusions justified based on the results they present? Explain your answer.