MEDIA ADVISORY
For immediate release
November 11, 2005

SEEDS Students Explore Long Term Ecological Project in New Mexico

ESA's Strategies for Ecology Education, Development, and Sustainability (SEEDS) program, with a grant from the National Science Foundation, is sponsoring a student field trip from November 10-13, 2005 to the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Project (LTER). The Sevilleta LTER Project is located about 80 kilometers south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in and around the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.

Highlights of the field trip include exploring the Sevilleta refuge and its surroundings, which are positioned at the intersection of several major biotic zones: Chihuahuan Desert grassland and shrubland to the south, Great Plains grassland to the north, Piñon-Juniper woodland in the upper elevations of the neighboring mountains, Colorado Plateau shrub-steppe to the west, and riparian vegetation along the middle Rio Grande Valley.

The students will travel to the Sevilleta Field Station where they will learn more about the Sevilleta LTER program. They will also visit research sites and learn about various research projects, as well as see the Bosque Del Apache, one of the major winter bird refuges in North America .

Competitively chosen African American, Latino American, and Native American students from across the United States and Puerto Rico will participate in the trip. Schools represented include Florida A&M University, Johnson C. Smith University, Livingstone College, Mount Mary College, New College of Florida, Northern Arizona University, San Diego City College, Tuskegee University, United Tribes Technical College, University of California-Irvine, University of Hawaii-Manoa, University of Michigan, University of Puerto Rico-Humacao, University of Texas-El Paso, University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, and Western Washington University.

Previous ESA SEEDS field trips include the National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Kananaskis Field Station located in the Rocky Mountains in Canada, Stanford University 's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and other local ecological sites in Northern California, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee.

The SEEDS program began in 1996 as a collaborative effort to work towards increasing the number of minorities in the field of ecology. SEEDS has stimulated interest among minorities in pursuing ecology, provided professional development to aid science faculty in creating new ecology offerings, and taken new steps to increase cultural diversity within the Ecological Society of America. SEEDS also promotes ecology by supporting field trips, campus ecology chapters, summer fellowships, and ESA Annual Meeting travel scholarships. For more information on the SEEDS program visit: www.esa.org/seeds/.