Overview
At the dawn of an exciting new continental-scale approach to ecology, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is working with key partners to develop a coherent strategy that will introduce to the educational community, the opportunities and the data to be available from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). Through several related projects, ESA is gathering feedback from:
- faculty; on educational needs, perceived obstacles, and recommendations on how to use continental-scale data in the classroom,
- minority-serving institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities on their capabilities in connection with NEON-enabled science and
- digitally sophisticated college students on innovative ways to represent and engage with NEON data.
Since education has been conceived as a primary benefit of the NEON infrastructure (NEON Integrated Science and Education Plan, 2006), these projects will help shape NEON’s cyberinfrastructure and educational programming to ensure that continental-scale science reaches the diverse faculty and students in the undergraduate community.
Press Release: Ecological Society of America and partners receive $207K NSF grant

Projects
In collaboration with several partner organizations, ESA proposes to introduce NEON to the education community in several phases.
2008-2009
Faculty development workshops in Washington, DC and Albuquerque, NM.
Development of a Conceptual Framework for Continental-scale Ecology Education.
2009-2011
NCEAS Distributed Seminar (derived from 2008 workshop and with a subset of previous participants)
Cultivating the Participation of Underrepresented Institutions and Students in NEON.
- Faculty development webinars
- Future of Environmental Decisions College Student Workshop
- Campus Speaking Tours
Partner organizations
Please see the Partners page.