Symposium # 1: Education and Human Resources Vice President's Symposium: Defining Ecological Thinking as a Goal for Ecology Education.

Organized by: A.R. Berkowitz and C. Brewer
Sunday, August 6, 2000
8:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Ballroom I - Cliff Lodge

When considering what are the enduring understandings in ecology we wish to engender in our students - be they undergraduate biology majors, future ecologists or future teachers - we are ill-served by the current structure of the curriculum or even the discipline (e.g., population ecology, community ecology, biomes, etc.). As a guide to radically new curriculum and instruction, from the design of single ecology segments of larger courses to the structure of undergraduate majors, we propose to identify the foundational "ways of thinking" that are essential tools of the ecologically literate person. Ultimately, we seek to define the overarching goal of ecology education - ecological thinking - by exploring its component parts and their integration.

This symposium aims to begin that process, with each paper developing the substance and rationale for a different sort of thinking as an essential component of ecological thinking. Following the presentations, a panel will address these questions: 1) Have we omitted critical "ways of thinking", including some that are not essential, and provided an adequate vision for their integration into ecological thinking, and 2) What are the implications of ecological thinking and its components, as defined herein, for curriculum and instruction? We plan to assemble the papers and commentary from the panel and submit them to Ecology for consideration as a Special Feature on Ecological Thinking and Education.