Conservation biology is an interdisciplinary science that addresses conservation of biological diversity at genetic, population, species, ecosystem, landscapes, and global levels. Teaching conservation biology to undergraduates should be founded on a strong scientific basis, and radiate into policy, economics, social sciences, natural resource management, and mathematics. Herein, principals of ecology and evolution should lay the theoretical foundation, henceforth introduce on-ground applications and techniques that support maintenance, protection, management, and restoration of ecological and evolutionary processes as well as physical habitat structure that are critical for biodiversity conservation. Coursework should foster student-centered discussions, and inquiry-based learning, including field-based laboratory exercises. Further, themes such as wildlife and habitat management, participatory stakeholder engagement, science-based policy actions, causes and consequences of biodiversity loss, and established and emerging conservation approaches are integral when teaching conservation biology. Through hands-on laboratory activities, students should experience planning research, systematic biodiversity surveys, data analyses, scientific communication, long-term ecological monitoring, and troubleshooting conservation issues. In-depth comprehension of conservation problems across all biological (genes to landscapes) and geographical (local to global) scales is also critical to effectively learn of conservation biology.
Results/Conclusions
Conservation biology course I designed was taught in three occasions in two different universities in the US, a public university and a private liberal-arts college. Students enrolled majored either in biology or environmental sciences. My approach included interactive lectures, pair-share questions to initiate open-ended discussions and test previous knowledge, in-class discussions based on a peer-reviewed research articles, and multiple review-based writing assignments. The latter included constructing a conservation and management action plan for an endangered species, which warranted reading multiple primary and secondary scientific literature and formulating a conservation action plan containing substantial review, reflective elements, and synthesis. I frequently engaged students in reflective conversations to address contemporary topics (climate change, financing conservation, and strict environmental regulations, state-sponsored conservation policies, and transboundary conservation). Group-based student presentations on pre-assigned topics (global biodiversity hotspots, current news in conservation, endangered species, etc) was also a part in my course. this project required the students to meet outside the class, review different information sources and create dynamic presentations. These presentations were embedded in different days of the semester so that those student presentations added diversity to daily class activities. The lab activities involved field-based data collection, statistical analyses, conducting IUCN conservation assessments, and case study analyses. The field activities included long-term research: surveying woodland salamanders, avifaunal surveys, and monitoring invasive species.