Undergraduate/Graduate

Field Courses

I have taught or co-taught over 65 field courses since 1990, most of these via Queen’s University. About half of these course I taught at the Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS), while the others were taught at various locales within China (with my colleague Yuxiang Wang), East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania), and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico). The emphases for these courses vary but typically encompass natural history, ecology and conservation biology, with an underpinning of understanding local history, culture, socioeconomics – and often the impacts of colonialism and globalization. For most of these field courses, I create individualized websites and we have students create a course blog. Below are links to course websites with blogs:

Lecture & Lab-Based

Biology 440: Speciation & Macroevolution

This course explores evolutionary processes and the patterns that they produce at and above the species level. We’ll begin with a brief reprise of microevolution and the purported distinction between it and macroevolution, if indeed such demarcation can be sharply drawn and is useful. This is followed by detailed considerations of theoretical underpinnings and empirical examinations of models and genomics of speciation (contrasting different mechanisms), adaptive radiation, evo/devo, cladogenesis, and origins of higher-order taxa, and reconstructions of evolutionary history of focal groups of species. Later in the course we explore deep-time evolution including such things as the causes, rates, and consequences of mass extinction. Of particular emphasis will be the vastness of time over which life on earth has evolved and the different eons, periods and epochs of geological/evolutionary time and the hallmark events that demarcate them.

Sample Course Syllabus | PDF |

BIOL 855: Indigenous Knowledge for Ecology and Conservation

Co-taught with Stafford Rotehrá:kwas Maracle

Graduate level reading course. As we face rapidly advancing environmental change caused by human development – intensive agriculture, resource extraction, habitat destruction & degradation, globalization, urbanization, and change – we find ourselves searching for practices to mitigate the impact on what remains of our natural systems. Much of our understanding of how humans do or should relate to and manage the natural world flow from Western science and a Eurocentric perspective. However, many Indigenous Peoples around the globe have seen substantial populations thrive while sustainably co-existing with their environments. Emerging recognition of the deep ecological knowledge held within Indigenous nations has brought hope for new approaches to sustainability and conservation, with distinct Indigenous worldviews, ecological perspectives and relationships that are inherently and purposely subjective and reflected in place-based practices. Understanding the foundations of these distinct worldviews allows us to engage more effectively with knowledge holders and local Indigenous nations to implement two-eyed seeing for effective sustainable research and practices.

In this course, we explore the book Traditional Ecological Knowledge (editors. Melissa K. Nelson, Daniel Shilling) comprised of short essays from Indigenous academics and knowledge holders discussing the foundations and nature of traditional ecological knowledge (Indigenous knowledge or IK as it is referred to now). These chapters provide teachings and lessons from specific Indigenous nations that are currently practiced and those that have sustained populations and ecosystems for thousands of years. In our first meeting, students will be assigned a chapter from Traditional Ecological Knowledge for which they will be responsible. Prior to meeting each week, we will all read the chapter to be discussed that week. Students will facilitate discussion for their assigned chapter. After each weekly meeting, students will provide a written summary of the chapter and discussion. There will be one final term paper. We will also seek to invite some local guest speakers to explore their views on Indigenous perspectives and the environment. The final term paper will focus on student’s own research or another research/case study that currently does not include IK seeking how one might incorporate IK to complement Western scientific approaches.

Sample Course Syllabus | PDF |

Teaching

Undergraduate/Graduate

Field Courses

Biodiversity Conservation of East Africa

Ecology of a Biodiversity Hotspot. The Brazilian Atlantic Coastal

Aquatic diversity & environmental assessment – China-Canada

Ecology & Conservation Biology in Mexico

Ecology and Conservation in Northern Patagonia

Lecture & Lab-Based

Biology 440: Speciation & Macroevolution

BIOL 855: Indigenous Knowledge for Ecology and Conservation