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Ohio Sea Grant College Program
and Stone Laboratory

Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory

On-line Course for Teachers

NR690D: Alien Species Education
Autumn 2004, 2 Credits [G]
Call #: 14810-6

Designed to educate teachers about exotic and invasive species and to provide activities and methods for integrating exotic species education into education settings. The course is offered online with no required class meetings. Most activities require interaction with students.

Objectives

Teachers who successfully complete this course will be able to

  • Describe the entry mechanism and impacts of at least 8 different types of exotic species that have entered the US ecosystem
  • Identify sources of accurate, current information about exotic species
  • Demonstrate ways to educate their students about exotic species and the threats such species pose to their local environment
  • Design a curriculum activity to teach about exotic species in their classroom.

Format

The course is taught online, asynchronously. The website is available at [http://earthsys.ag.ohio-state.edu/alien.htm] and you must have a username and password to login [available from the instructor at registration]. The course materials will be available starting September 1, and must be completed by December 1.

Course materials

All course materials are available online from the course website. You must have computer and Internet access to complete the course. Most pages have printable formats for working offline if needed.

Topics

Topics to be addressed in the course include:
Origin, ecosystem impacts, and control of exotic species
Methods for learning about local and regional exotic species threats
Ways to integrate exotic species education into your school and community

Course activities

  • Exotic species match-up [your own pretest]
  • Web evaluation activity
  • Final project [development of an activity, guidelines provided]

Activities to be completed with your students

  1. Task One: Exotic species matchup
  2. Task Two: Monsters in the Lakes?
  3. Task Three: Backyard activity
  4. Task Four: Painting a picture of exotic species Zebra mussel decision activity

Evaluation

Grade contract can be negotiated. A letter grade, not simply S/U, is earned by submission of

  • Task 1 class results, tabulated 10%
  • Tasks 2-3 class activity reports 15% each
  • Task 4 samples of student work 10%
  • Website evaluation 10%
  • Development of an activity 40%

Instructor

Rosanne W. Fortner, OSU School of Natural Resources [fortner.2@osu.edu]