Courses at Macalester College
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Ecology & the Environment
Fundamental concepts of Ecology are taught with an emphasis on four lenses: Environmental Justice, Climate Change, Ecosystem Services, and Land Use Change. Students learn through lab and field activities, group case study investigations on globally diverse systems, real data interpretation, and guided reading of primary literature. The design of this course prioritized inclusion, community-building in a large class, and application in the 21st century.
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Arctic Ecology
An upper-level seminar that applies a 'systems science' approach to studying the Arctic - integrating climate science, paleoecology, anthropology, plant ecology, animal physiology, and soil science. Weekly discussions of primary literature, and emphasis on writing and science communication.
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Plant Ecophysiology
Upper-level lecture and lab course that examines plants' role and function in ecosystems. We scale from cell to globe, with topics including: photosynthesis, respiration, water transport, nutrient uptake, and growth. This course emphasizes measurements through weekly labs and data analysis, and reflects regularly on the intersection of climate change and environmental justice.
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Big Data in Ecology
Upper-level seminar on the organization, management, analysis, and visualization of real, messy environmental and ecological data in R/RStudio. Team-based active learning covering four modules: water quality in agricultural landscapes; climate change and human livelihoods; forest carbon cycling; and animal migration and conservation. Students write up short data-driven narratives alongside code and analysis, and complete semester with an independent project.
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Plants, Environment, & Society
All-majors course that introduces basics of plant biology, and covers topics including GM foods and science literacy, global agriculture, urban greenspace & environmental inequities in cities, and biodiversity of our ecosystems and in our diets.
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Teaching materials - Please use!
- Mentoring & Support Map for undergraduates. This is based off of a mentoring map I love made by the Earth Science Women's Network, which is based off a mentoring map made by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.
- Traditional Ecological Knowledge & Conservation (online/remote adaptable): https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/1939/1
- Redlining and Climate Change (online/remote adaptable): https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/1938/usage?v=1
- Phenology and carbon cycling with PhenoCams and eddy covariance in R: https://github.com/mheskel/PhenoCam-Lab-368
- Site comparisons of greenness using MODIS NDVI and EVI: https://github.com/mheskel/MODISTools-Lab-368
