Ecology Resources at SERC

From here, find resources and teaching materials such as visualizations for effective teaching from SERC projects and collaborators for ecology subjects in the classroom and lab.

Collections & Resources for Educators

Climate and Energy Educational Resources
CLEAN provides reliable, vetted educational materials on climate and energy topics, ensuring scientific credibility and educational value for your classroom.Infuse Sustainability into Your Course
Boost relevance, link to current events and other fields while broadening students' perspectives.Teaching about Water
From the InTeGrate project, water-related topics span various fields, offering many ways to introduce water and sustainability themes.AK UNiTE
AK UNiTE, an NSF-funded network, enhances mentorship training for Alaskan researchers to foster culturally responsible approaches and increase diversity in undergraduate biology research.Microbial Life - Educational Resources
Explore materials on microorganisms, extremophiles, and extreme habitats, with links on their ecology, diversity, and evolution for students, teachers, faculty, and the public.Climate Mental Health
Find resources to go beyond the doom and gloom of teaching about climate change.

Teaching Activities

Browse Teaching Activities

Browse the SERC collection for classroom activities, lab exercises, field trip ideas (including virtual), writing assignments, and more. Find thousands of peer-reviewed activities to enhance your teaching at all levels.

EDDIE Teaching Materials

Explore Project EDDIE, and Macrosystems EDDIE, data-driven teaching materials, including video tutorials, statistical vignettes, and classroom activities, ready to use or adapt for your course.

Tree-Ring Expeditions

Tree-Ring Expeditions (TREX) offers six labs for community college and undergraduate students, immersing them in dendrochronology through hands-on activities and video interviews with scientists. Students explore tree-ring sites, analyze data, and learn about the impact of tree-ring research on understanding past climates and environments.

InTeGrate Teaching Materials

InTeGrate materials engage students in earth system and societal issues through interdisciplinary problems and geoscientific thinking. Freely available, they are adaptable for geoscience, environmental science, social science, engineering, and interdisciplinary courses.

Using the Neotoma Database in the Classroom

This Neotoma database collection features data-focused activities for undergraduate courses in environmental science, geology, biology, ecology, and geography, highlighting post-Ice Age changes and species' responses, including seven exercises on climate change effects on mammals.

Featured Activities

Sacred Food and Carbon Footprint examines the cultural and religious concept of sacred and the ecological concept of carbon footprint through participatory workshops, shared ritual meals, research, and student centered learning. This curriculum examines how understanding of "big ideas" in cultural or religious studies and ecology can help students to become grounded, focused, mindful, and engaged world citizens.

Using NSF's NEON Data in an Undergraduate Ecology CURE on the Ecological Impacts of Global Climate Change
In this semester-long course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), students develop and answer their own ecological research questions using NSF NEON data, learning R for data analysis and visualization. Through mini-assignments, tutorials, and weekly meetings, they gain coding skills and present their findings at the annual undergraduate research day.

Climate Change Effects on Lake Temperatures
In this module, students set up and run lake simulation models with custom climate scenarios to explore how climate change affects lake thermal structure. They learn to use distributed computing tools to scale up and test multiple scenarios, gaining modeling and computing skills while understanding the impacts of climate change on lakes.

Related Materials

Four-Dimensional Ecology Education Framework (4DEE) - This initiative stems from three decades of discussions among ecologists and ESA leaders. They have long advocated for a structure that enhances eco-literacy by ensuring a foundational understanding of essential ecological terms and concepts, thereby supporting more informed public policies and effective ecological problem-solving.

Red Tide - Microbial Life Educational Resources - This page provides users with basic information about red tide, including what it is, what causes it, why it's harmful, and how to remediate it. The page also includes links to collections of further information which are categorized by audience: general, advanced, and educators.

The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone - Microbial Life Educational Resources - This page provides users with basic information about dead zones, focusing on the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and includes information such as what it is, what causes it, why it's harmful, and how to remediate it. The page also includes links to collections of further information which are categorized by audience: general, advanced, and educators.

Curriculum for the Bioregion - This is a network of educators in Washington State who are integrating sustainability and place-based content in a broad array of undergraduate courses. The site hosts collections of teaching activities, courses, and essays with approaches to curriculum integration and engaging pedagogies for both classroom- and community-based learning.