I have no doubt that adding an ecology course to highschool could improve ecology grades in college. However, the students coming out of highschools in the five states where I taught/teach college biology aren't prepared enough to take intro to biology let alone ecology.
I would use Smith and Smith, it covers the material and has been around long enough that the various publishing errors and miswritten definitions are no longer a factor. I haven't used the book in two years, so they may have straitened out the problems by now. IT was getting rave reviews from the schools where teaching evolution was a problem. I think the book dumbs down a lot if areas to the point of being marginally correct. I recall the community ecology section being poor and I was very unhappy with it. THere is a place for Molles, maybe highschool is it, but I would never use it in my college classes again. Too many students came back from reading it with misconceptions arising from the way the author presented ecological and evolutionary phenomena. On Mon, September 24, 2007 10:34 am, Rachel Schwartz wrote: > I recommend Molles' text (assuming you really feel the need to use a > textbook, and I probably would only use it as reference) despite the > previous comment. Many EcoEd members use Molles according to a survey by > the ESA education coordinator (join EcoEd if you want to chat about > teaching > ecology). As for why ecology should be taught before college, as a couple > of other members have commented the subject is much more accessible to > students than other areas of biology. Once students are excited about > ecology then you can get into teaching other aspects of biology, including > any fundamentals you feel students need to understand ecological > phenomena, > and they'll actually listen (take a look at education literature for > research and theory to back this up). > > Rachel Schwartz > NSF GK-12 Fellow > PhD candidate in Ecology > University of California, Davis > Malcolm L. McCallum Assistant Professor of Biology Editor Herpetological Conservation and Biology http://www.herpconbio.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
