Education

Introduction

The international Long Term Ecological Research network (LTER) enables cooperation between scientists from different countries and facilitates interdisciplinary and comparative studies. Issues of interest to the global network include loss of biodiversity, climate change, changes in soil quality and the availability of water, and the impact of pollutants and toxic chemicals. LTER sites around the world address these issues alongside the more conventional research undertaken at the same sites.

LTER stations and the databases they develop create a number of unique educational opportunities for enhancing environmental literacy. These unique aspects include:

• The ability to monitor long-term patterns and phenomena
• The ability to analyze and synthesize the data collected at different stations
• The ability to undertake learning relating to large-scale systems typical of most of the systems on Earth
• The accumulation of data from different systems and over time by different educational communities enables the development of unique mutual relations
• The potential for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary generalization is more similar to the context of problem solving in the real world.

Moreover, long-term climactic and ecological monitoring and cooperation between students collecting data and researching their environment at different sites in the same region may contribute to the development of various dimensions of ecological literacy, particularly the dimensions of space and time.

Previous studies examining the integration of students in long-term research have shown that students who participate in long-term experiments benefit from learning about scientific methods, developing field experiments, appreciating the value and limitations of long-term field experiments, identifying biotic and abiotic interactions in the system, and integrating the data and results in their holistic understanding of the system.

ILTER education activities

ILTER members collectively carry out a wide range of educational activities, in the field, laboratory and classroom. Find out more ...

Over the next few years, ILTER intends to develop its educational role, building upon the experience of its members.

Further information

For more informaion about ILTER and education, please contact:

Dr. Saleit Ron
Education Portfolio leader at the ILTER Public Policy Committee
Head of Education
Ramat Hanadiv, Israel
E-mail