Lack of a national biodiversity database currently hinders conservation efforts, particularly in areas undergoing development, where unique species and natural communities are often destroyed before their value is recognized. This proposal outlines a solution to this problem: coordinating the laboratories of traditional field courses to conduct biotic inventories of local natural areas. Using the service/learning model, undergraduates in upper-division biology courses (e.g., entomology, ichthyology, plant taxonomy) will conduct biological surveys of town, county and state parks, and natural areas owned by nonprofit organizations and private landowners (e.g., historic gardens and plantations). These groups cannot usually afford to hire consulting firms to inventory biological diversity, yet their properties often harbor rare or unique flora and fauna. The educational benefits of this strategy are profound. The best way to learn science is to do science, and the best way for undergraduates to do good science is to be interested in producing a tangible, valuable product. The educational goals of this project are to improve students' understanding of the entire scientific process, from observation to hypothesis testing, experimentation, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation and ultimately, publication in both print and electronic media. Access to modern equipment, including remote data acquisition and monitoring equipment, global positioning equipment, geographic information systems and networked computers will increase both the students' scientific sophistication and the quality and accessibility of the survey results. Including process-oriented courses such as plant ecology and plant physiology will help students see the interrelationships among biological phenomena, enabling them to ask broad, fundamental questions. Integrating information from multiple courses will add cohesion to the undergraduate curriculum. This project will assist the SC Natural Heritage Program and the National Gap Analysis Project, and can serve as a national model for applying the service/learning approach to biology.
