SO WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY ANYWAY?
    As you know from the Woodrow Wilson home page, the topic for this year's institute was biodiversity.   But what does that  mean to us, why is it important for us to teach biodiversity to our students and how do we integrate biodiversity into an already crowded curriculum?  After three weeks of intensive study, I have developed some ideas, but they are by no means the final word on the subject.

    To me, biodiversity is the sum total of all processes, organisms, and ecosystems in the biosphere.  If  this definition seems incredibly broad and nebulous to you, YOU'RE RIGHT!  However, I have, after this summer's institute, learned to appreciate biodiversity without a concrete definition of the word.

    Through our investigations of bacteria, pond life, and arthropods, I see that there are a lot of ways maintain homeostasis in an ecosystem.  Organisms perform many life functions in a variety of ways, some observable and some more ethereal.  However, they all do it right, if you will.  That is, they all manage to stay alive and procreate.  If I can get my students to understand and appreciate that idea, I think that I have successfully taught biodiversity.

    One project we worked on during the institute was creating a concept map (mind map, spider diagram, web, whatever else you'd like to call this) of biodiversity. How does biodiversity relate to the other topics we cover in high school biology?  Click this to see the concept map (with slight modification) that I and my group developed.  The program  I used to create this concept map is called Inspiration.  You can get a thirty day trial version here.  Inspiration is a wonderful resource for teachers and students.  If you use concept maps, you MUST try this program.
b
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation 
CN 5281, Princeton NJ 08543-5281 - Tel:(609)452-7007 - Fax:(609)452-0066
Technical contact: lpt@woodrow.org