The recent acquisition of a core set of ecological instrumentation is making it possible for this Department to expand its upper-level courses as well as to widen the range of the student-oriented research projects it can offer. This development project thus forms an integral part of an ongoing University plan to emphasize the sciences. The specific impact of this project is on undergraduate instruction in Ecology and the Environmental Sciences. Among the new resources now available to the students are an oceanographic field kit, portable conductivity/salinity meter, dissolved oxygen and biological oxygen demand meter, core sampler and electronic soil testing lab, recording weather station, air quality monitoring devices, and sophisticated laboratory apparati for studying environmental samples brought in from the field for more exacting analysis. This improvement will result in a better prepared graduate of the University who in turn will be better able to perform at the professional level after graduation. The Caribbean area in particular and tropical America in general are in urgent need of trained ecologists to help stem the current catastrophic losses of such natural resources as forest cover, soils and biological diversity, and to help cope with the effects of such losses.
