Teaching/Education

My research facilitates experiential and outdoor, place-based education;  I am dedicated to teaching and mentorship that helps students independently develop a sense of wonder in the environment, consider and care for their own relationship with place and society, build understandings of ecosystem ecology, and acquire skills that will allow them to pursue their own academic and professional interests in the future. 

A large part of my research mission is not only to build scientific insights in Ecology, but also provide opportunity for students to engage in the problem solving and critical thinking of the scientific method and primary research process.  Having studied and completed coursework in pedagogy myself, I seek to constantly prototype teaching methods that improve my instruction.  I have incorporated aspects of active learning and placed-based learning/outdoor education into my teaching paradigm.  As such, I co-developed a Methods in Ecology course at the University of Colorado that centered around active, experiential learning, where students engaged with the research process from fieldwork in montane forests through analysis and publication of results.   I have mentored high school, undergraduate, and international graduate students through my research program, some of whom are themselves now in PhD programs.  My experience teaching in an instructional setting ranges from TA-ing undergraduate Microbiology and Biology classes/labs at the University of Colorado to annually leading an environmental science section of high school student trips via National Geographic Student Expeditions.