Bioscience Day Teachers' Symposium Agenda

Date: November 12, 2009

Location: Adele Student Union - The Atrium 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m.  Welcome Check-In Registration/ Breakfast

9:30 - 10:30 a.m.  "Contributions of citizen science to studies of climate change"
Dr. David Inouye, Professor of Biology and Co-Director, CONS Graduate Program

For nearly four decades, a University of Maryland professor has traveled to Colorado each spring to study in fields of purple dwarf larkspurs and vibrant red columbines. He's watched through the summers as these pretty little wildflowers grew and blossomed. And what he's learned about their changing growing seasons is telling us something important about the Earth's climate. David Inouye's research on patterns in flowers' growing seasons around the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Crested Butte, Colo., has taken on new significance as researchers try to understand and slow global warming.  

Read a news release on Dr. Inouye's research.

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.  "Sustainability in the classroom: utilizing pollination biology"
Dr. Michele Dudash, Associate Professor of Biology and Director, BEES Division in the BISI Graduate Program

Dr. Dudash's research interests are motivated by her curiosity of what factors contribute to plant population's persistence or demise over time. The research in her lab encompasses the evolution and maintenance of breeding systems, plant-pollinator interactions, and the demography of populations. In this framework, the basic research conducted in her lab has direct implications for conservation and restoration strategies of threatened and endangered species.

11:00 - 11:30 a.m.  "Science courses for non-majors - Pollinators in Crisis"
Dr. David Hawthorne, Associate Professor and Graduate Director, Entomology

How do we expose students to the scientific process in ways that will matter? What do we seek to accomplish in "core" science courses? With the support of the Marquee Courses in Science and Technology group, I have transformed a course to address some of these issues. From the syllabus: "Birds, bees, bats and other species that pollinate North American plant life are in decline due to environmental stress and disease. What are the threats currently facing wild and managed pollinators and how can we reverse this trend? "Anybody who likes to eat should care about what's happening to pollinators," says Dr. David Hawthorne, Associate Professor of Entomology. "About 30% of our food depends on them." Foods like chocolate, almonds and other nuts, berries, and many fruits and vegetables would not be part of our diet without the work of pollinators."

11:30 - 12:30 p.m.  "Integrating Inquiry and Content in Biology Teaching"
Dr. Daniel Levin, Assistant Professor Science Education, American University

Dr. Levin earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with specialization in science education at the University of Maryland at College Park in 2008, where he also served as a lecturer, teaching courses in science teaching methods, action research, and biological science. Before pursing his doctoral degree, Dr. Levin taught public school for nine years in secondary schools in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Dr. Levin began his teaching career as a middle school science teacher, where he eventually also served as the science department chair. More recently, he has taught high school biology, chemistry, science research methods, Earth science, and environmental science and served as coordinator of the Science, Mathematics, and Technology Academy at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. Before becoming a teacher, Dr. Levin held positions as a research biologist at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in biology and anthropology from Brandeis University in 1989, and a master of arts in teaching from Towson University in 1997. Dr. Levin's dissertation, and his ongoing research program, focus on understanding how (and when) science teachers attend to the substance of students' scientific thinking, and how what teachers attend to is shaped and constrained by the cultural systems in which they work. A portion of his dissertation was recently published in the Journal of Teacher Education. Another paper, on the relations and conflicts between scientific inquiry and "the scientific method" is in press in the journal Science Education.

12:00 - 1:00 p.m.  LUNCH!
Served in The Atrium during Dr. Levin's talk

1:00 - 1:30 p.m.  Meet with Bioscience Day keynote speaker Dr. Thomas Lovejoy
Thomas E. Lovejoy, Heinz Center Biodiversity Chair, H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment

Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy became the first recipient of the newly created Heinz Center Biodiversity Chair in August 2008. He previously served as President of the Heinz Center since May 2002. Before his association with The Heinz Center, he was the World Bank's Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean and Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation. Dr. Lovejoy has been Assistant Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary at the Smithsonian Institution, Science Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior, and Executive Vice President of the World Wildlife Fund-U.S. He conceived the idea for the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project (a joint project between the Smithsonian and Brazil's INPA), originated the concept of debt-for-nature swaps, and is the founder of the public television series Nature. In 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.

5:30 - 6:30 p.m.  The Dr. Erik B. & Mrs. Joyce D. C. Young Lecture
Thomas E. Lovejoy, Heinz Center Biodiversity Chair will present "Climate Change and Nature," in the Colony Ballroom