FW: [Ecoed] Call for articles on education about urban pollination and food security

[Thomas Poulson]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Thomas Poulson <tomandliz at bellsouth.net>
Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:22:49 -0400
To: cpicone <cpicone at fsc.edu>
Cc: <berkowitza at ecostudies.org>
Conversation: [Ecoed] Call for articles on education about urban pollination
and food security
Subject: Re: [Ecoed] Call for articles on education about urban pollination
and food security

Chris:

I will be sending the exercise to the new on-line teaching journal.  I
developed it for an ecology course at The University of Illinois at Chicago.

Here are the basics of the lab.  I always make students use the scientific
method with multiple hypothes to avoid the trap of a favorite hypothesis
with inadvertant bias or advertant fraud. I used an in-class campus ­
neighborhood field trip to show students the methods and they had to gather
data on their own or in groups.  This helped mitigate the problems of
spooking the birds with a large group and occasional absence of starlings on
some days.  I have sometimes titled this lab THE JUNK FOOD GUILD.

1. Concepts of feeding niche and habitat; hypotheses based on body size and
bill shape and native habitat
2. Quantification of habitat by observations of frequency by % natural vs.
constructed habitat (sparrows tend to be in²colonies² in neighborhoods with
vine thickets for winter shelter ‹ sound of chirping as well as sightings to
show this) 
3. Quantification of niche by observations of where they peck, how they
move, and potential food items where they are feeding (graphs of time vs
distance to show foraging patterns)
4. Ask students to make niche / habitat area / volume graphs
5. Tests of predictions from niche studies by feeding different kinds of
food items in the field (e.g. Bread, mealworms, small fruits, seeds of
different sizes;  for independent research I have also used food trays in
backyards and looked at remaining items/ numbers of known initial numbers to
get giving up density  (since these are non natives with care one might trap
and kill birds to examine crops and gizzards)
6. Compare approach distances to flight of urban and rural pigeons and of
the three species in one area
7. An extension of the lab comes from the observation that starlings and
pigeons are often in large flocks.  This lead to a discussion of the
positive and negative tradeoffs of being in groups (schools, herds,
flocks...).  This leads to brainstorming results of  a simulation game with
whiffle balls thrown at different rates (total numbers per time) by ~ six
student prey to one student predator with appropriate controls.  The results
support the confusion effect (not mutually exclusive of dilution effect).
Then one gives the predator some instructions to concentrate on one prey at
a time and have a mix of mostly white with a few red prey.  The predator
catches some red prey.  This illustrates the reality of the odd / sick, slow
prey effect.  Part of the writeup is to talk about the tradeoffs of reality,
generality, and accuracy in models.

Cheers, Tom

PS Alan please forward to ecoed
PSS I have adapted parts of this to primary and high school venues


On 10/4/07 11:38 AM, "cpicone" <cpicone at fsc.edu> wrote:

> Hi Tom:
> 
> Could I see what you do with pigeon-sparrow-starling niche and habitat?  I
> teach ecology at a small state college, and have mostly plant-based labs
> and/or computer data to analyze, since working with wildlife can be so
> unpredictable.  Your idea could be adapted to a college-level lab, I suspect.
> 
> Thanks for any input.
> 
> Chris Picone
> Fitchburg State College (MA)
> 
> 
> On 10/3/07 7:22 PM, "Thomas Poulson" <tomandliz at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
>> Alan:
>> 
>> Sounds worthwhile.
>> 
>> I have a number of interactive lab / discussion / field trip exercises that I
>> have used in urban areas K-seniors.
>> They include vacant lot succession, adaptations / niches / microhabitats of
>> sidewalk crack plants, pigeon ­ house sparrow ­ starling feeding niche and
>> habitat, dispersal modes of dandelion and ploantain in relation to habitat
>> generalization or specialization etc  Would these be appropriate materail for
>> the new on-line journal?
>> 
>> Cheers, Tom
>> 
>> Dr. Thomas Poulson, Emeritus Professor
>> Ecology and Evolution Group, Department of Biological Sciences
>> University of Illinois at Chicago
>> 
>> 561-630-3643, tomandliz at bellsouth.net
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> On 10/3/07 2:27 PM, "Alan Berkowitz" <berkowitza at ecostudies.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Pollination Services and Food Security in the City
>>> CATE Journal, Volume 3
>>> 
>>> We are soliciting articles on pollination ecology, pollination services, and
>>> urban community gardens for an upcoming issue of the online peer-reviewed
>>> journal, Cities and the Environment (catejournal.org
>>> <http://www.catejournal.org/> ) to be published November 2008. We are
>>> particularly interested in articles about education and outreach around
>>> these topics.
>>>  
>>> Critical ecosystem services provided by pollinators are at risk, with
>>> declining populations of both native and non-native bees. More than one
>>> third of temperate food crops are dependent on pollination, according to
>>> some estimates. Recent work has addressed the potential impacts of loss of
>>> pollinators for commercial agriculture. But as urban areas expand and an
>>> increasing proportion of the human population lives in cities, the role of
>>> pollinators dwelling in urban and suburban areas may likewise become
>>> increasingly critical to understand.
>>>  
>>> We aim for this volume of CATE to address a suite of related issues in urban
>>> pollinator ecology and community gardening. What roles do pollinators play
>>> in urban ecosystems, both for native plant populations and for crop plants
>>> grown in private and public gardens, and in nearby farms? Can urban gardens
>>> function to support native bees and other pollinators? Community gardens
>>> provide affordable, nutritious food sources for many urban residents. What
>>> impact might pollinator declines have on community gardens and on the people
>>> that use them? And can community gardens contribute to ecological literacy
>>> by enhancing understanding of the importance of pollination?
>>> 
>>> We invite contributions to Cities and the Environment (CATE) on these and
>>> related issues. Please submit articles by 1 April 2008. For further
>>> information, contact Paige Warren (Associate Editor, CATE) at Department of
>>> Natural Resources Conservation, UMass-Amherst, ph: 413 545 0061, email:
>>> pswarren at nrc.umass.edu <mailto:pswarren at nrc.umass.edu> .
>>> 
>>> Thank you for your help in letting people know about this exciting
>>> opportunity.
>>> 
>>> Alan Berkowitz, Associate Editor, CATE
>>> 
>>> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>>> 
>>> Alan R. Berkowitz, Ph.D.
>>> 
>>> Head of Education
>>> 
>>> Institute of Ecosystem Studies
>>> 
>>> PO Box R (181 Sharon Turnpike)
>>> 
>>> Millbrook, NY 12545
>>> 
>>> Phone: (845) 677-7600 ext. 311 Fax: (845) 677-6455
>>> 
>>> Email: berkowitza at ecostudies.org <mailto:berkowitza at ecostudies.org>
>>> 
>>> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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