| An Integrated Approach to Urban Ecology |
Benjamin Harrison Society is a nonprofit organization--established in 1934. BHS' goals are to give every child across America and globally the opportunity to discover their potential in History, Archaeology, Technology, Mathematics, and other sciences through one-on-one interaction with a Mentor and/or through our classroom program. Middle and high school students pair with professionals to discover where their interest lies. There is a yearlong commitment between mentor/mentee, where the student will learn details about the industry career path and educational requirements to succeed. In addition to mentoring, distance learning, we offer hands on excavations, a weekend hands on Field School, job shadowing, conferences, internships and scholarships, and industry tours and a website with resources and activities.
An Integrated Approach to Urban Ecology (IAUE) objective is to provide exclusive pre-college training to students on basic concepts involved in urban ecology, biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and other contaminants in wetlands, as related to soil, water, and air quality. IAUE is an interdisciplinary curriculum, which includes the study of interactive biological, geological and chemical processes regulating the fate and transport of nutrients and contaminants in soil, water and atmospheric components of an ecosystem. Biogeochemistry also provides a framework to integrate physical, chemical and biological processes functioning in an ecosystem at various spatial and temporal scales.
Urban Ecology Mission
The mission of Benjamin Harrison Society (BHS) is to provide interdisciplinary biophysical and social science through teaching, research and outreach by integrating sustainable environmental and human solutions for today’s complex challenges for use by tomorrow’s citizens, scientists, managers, industry leaders and decision makers. This mission is laid out in the BHS Urban Ecology Curriculum along with the vision that BHS strives to become a pre-eminent program that provides a stream of interdisciplinary thinkers, integrative research and applications for the student to use in daily problem-solving. BHS
offers broad-based, inclusive public education, leading edge research and service to students nationally and the world.
Goals and Objectives
BHS’ management team conducted a comparison of BHS with interdisciplinary programs with programs offered by other organizations. The goal was to determine how BHS and its coursework programs compared to other programs and to lay out a strategy and set goals to become a top-ranked program. That was followed by the creation of BHS’s first strategic plan during 2005. This ambitious five-year plan for 2006-2011 contained goals and action items necessary to achieve the goals. This set the framework for tracking how BHS is meeting its goals. In addition, BHS also uses other processes to track progress and the achievement of its goals. A brief summary of these activities follows in this section.
Comparison to Other Organizations
The Benjamin Harrison Society aspires to be ranked among the top-ranked educational organizations. This means each program, department, or school must set and achieve high targets for excellence. In early 2004 an analysis was conducted by the BHS management team to identify those school with the strongest commitment to interdisciplinary programs in natural resources and environment, in order to compare the development of BHS with them. The analysis is subjective but instructive. The data were obtained by visiting the web sites of each school.
Forty-four schools were included in the analysis. Fifteen schools appear to have developed truly interdisciplinary programs. Nine have substantial urban ecology programs and are fully resourced with many faculty and courses. Three have substantial science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs, but do not offer their own courses (within the school or unit). Three have no interaction with industry experts or are interdisciplinary base curriculums. Twenty-two have traditional discipline-oriented academic courses with natural resources or environmental programs. A final six had no academic units with natural resources or environmental in the name.
The following module activity topics will be offered Fall 2009 and Summer 2010. Each module activity involves basic concepts and its application and usefulness in addressing environmental ecological significance to wetland restoration, water quality, and other ecological functions. For each module activity case studies from various region will be used.
Modules 2009/2010
Fall 2009 Modules
Enrollment Begins August 10, 2009
Enrollment Ends November 15, 2009
· Bioproperties of Wetlands and Communities. Click to Enroll!
· Water Quality and Macroinvertebrate. Click to Enroll!
· Birds, Plants, Trees, Animals and Binoculars. Click to Enroll!
· Agriculture and Farming Systems. Click to Enroll!
· Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. Click to Enroll!
· Water, Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering and Micro irrigations. Click to Enroll!
· Hydrological Sciences. Click to Enroll!
· How Green is My Community and How Brown Are Our Fields Part 1? Click to Enroll!
· Approaches to Healthier Communities, Environment, and Pollution Part1. Click to Enroll!
· GIS in Land Resource Management and Coordinates Systems in Mapping. Click to Enroll!
Spring 2010 Modules
Enrollment Begins December 10, 2009
Enrollment Ends February 15, 2010
· Microbiology and Cell Science
· Investigative Approaches in Archaeology and Anthropology.
· Approches to Zoning, Development, Urban and Regional Planning.
· How Green is My Community and How Brown Are Our Fields Part 2?
· Prevent Global Paradises from Disappearing
· Urban Development, Climate Changes, and Sustainable Cities Ecosystems
· Approaches to Healthier Communities, Environment, and Pollution Part 1
· Entomology and Nematology
· Modeling in Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology
· Genetic Data Analysis and Communities
· GIS in Land Resource Management and Coordinates Systems in Mapping
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