This award supports a strategic planning effort for the Ball State University Field Station and Environmental Education Center (FSEEC) This planning project will produce a short term (five-year) and a long term master plan, and a site-specific master plan for the construction of the FSEEC-LandLab facility. The planning process will focus on the best practices of field stations through site visits, interviews and focused workshops. A master planning workshop will bring together stakeholders and outside specialists with experience in such matters together in a charrette format. The FSEEC master plan is expected to encompass the resource management, research, education and outreach activities. The FSEEC-LandLab facility will house the research and educational programs of FSEEC and the Ball State University Land Design Institute. The development of a master plan for FSEEC will enhance scientific inquiry into the functions and interactions between natural and human dominated ecosystems. This planning effort will benefit from an interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers and landscape designers, and is expected to serve as a model for field station facility planning. The result of the planning effort and its implementation will be to improve existing FSEEC educational programs for underrepresented groups in science, including an existing NSF GK-12 program that focuses on STEM issues for at-risk students in the urban environment.
