May I also add that those of us with lands (both public and private) and who work directly w/students (undergrad and graduate) on these lands need to realize the opportunities we have to do something not being done elsewhere? We are doomed if education is purely done in the halls of academia and done only w/clean fingernails.
G On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:19 AM, David Inouye <[email protected]> wrote: > Paul Dayton asked me to post this: > > Dear Colleagues, I have enjoyed reading your laments about the loss of > field courses and of course have strong opinions about this because it > really is also the loss of respect for nature herself. We can't really > understand nature without experiencing it and students can't experience it > hiding behind computers in cloistered ivory towers. Harry Greene and I > have written about this: > > The importance of Natural Sciences to Conservation, 2003. American > Naturalist (162) and Organisms in Nature as a central focus in biology > 2005, TREE (20) > > and Ian Billick and Mary Price have a wonderful book: The Ecology of > Place I urge you to buy and read it. > > But the most important challenge I offer those of you who care enough to > comment is to offer a field course yourself. Try it; it takes a little > time but even if you don't know that much, your students will help teach it > for you and soon you will be considered a legendary naturalist. Don't just > complain, offer a field course yourself. It will evolve and you will learn > a lot and have a lot of fun as well. Finally, ESA has a Natural History > Section in need of your support and enthusiasm as it I think Nature is > disappearing within ESA just as it did in the Amer. Soc. of Naturalists. > Once students lose track of nature and become professors with no > understanding or experience themselves, it is hard to recover the sense of > wonder nature can induce in our science. > > Paul Dayton <[email protected]> > -- R. Gregory Corace III, Ph.D. Applied Sciences Program Seney National Wildlife Refuge 1674 Refuge Entrance Rd. Seney, MI 49883 Phone: (906) 586.9851 ext. 14 Fax: (906) 586.3800 Website: www.fws.gov/refuge/seney
