Lessons in Conservation: Volume 13

December 2023 - Monitoring and Modeling
Close up photo of a black ant walking on a peony leaf, surrounded by droplets of water

This issue of Lessons in Conservation is dedicated to the memory of the inspiring and sorely missed Dr. Eleanor J. Sterling. In this issue’s opening editorial, a small group of Eleanor’s colleagues reflect on her visionary educational approaches and consider the needs and opportunities for the field of conservation education to continue to improve. Under the umbrella of a Monitoring and Modeling theme, this issue features five student-facing educational resources that support learners to contribute to the scientific process, collect data, and analyze and model existing datasets in the same ways that some communities and scientists do as part of conservation research. 

Lessons in Conservation is the official journal of the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) and is currently available in electronic format. All materials in Lessons in Conservation are peer-reviewed and are reproduced from NCEP teaching modules. If you plan to use these materials in your teaching, you may wish to download easily modifiable Word versions of the materials found in Lessons in Conservation, along with additional teaching and learning modules, from the NCEP module collection.  

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Download individual articles: 

Lessons from a Transformative Conservation Educator and Building the Future of Conservation Education

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Six people wearing fieldwork gear stand in conversation in the foreground of a dense forest in Vietnam; Eleanor Sterling stands in the center. © H. Thach/CBC-AMNH

Managing Marine Seascapes Through Community-based Conservation

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Scuba diver conducting diver operated video (stereo-DOV) survey at Mo'orea, French Polynesia.

What is Community Science, and How Do I Get Involved?

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Volunteers help sort oyster shells for use in reef restoration activities in New York.

Lessons from Lizards: Adaptation to Introduced Ants

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An eastern fence lizard, dark grey in color, rests on a piece of wood.

A Brief Introduction to Species Distribution Modeling for Conservation Educators and Practitioners

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Diagram illustrating how a hypothetical species’ distribution model may be fitted to observed species occurrence records

Creating and Optimizing Species Distribution Models: A Vignette for Wallace Ecological Modeling Application v2.0

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Wallace logo comprising an orange butterfly illustration surrounded by a light blue border.