Professor California State University, Fullerton Fullerton, California, United States
Education in ecology provides skills, insights, and habits of mind that transfer easily to many other fields. An ability to reason through the features of complex ecological systems, such as non-linear responses, multi-variable causality, feedback loops, emergent properties, or conditional responses can help one navigate other disciplines, such as science education, that have similarly “messy” problems. I will talk about my own transition from invasion biology research into discipline-based science education research and how my experiences and education in ecology facilitated and inspired my work in science education.