Crossing Boundaries

Shows how long ago species diverged from a common ancestor

A free downloadable textbook written by the top names in conservation biology with the principal aim of disseminating cutting-edge conservation knowledge as widely as possible. Topics include balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangered species management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species.

Nearly 20% of all people-more than a billion-now live within biodiversity hotspots, and their growth rate is faster than the human population at large. This article presents nine steps to reduce biodiversity loss, with a goal of relegating human-caused extinctions to the wrongs of the past.

Free spatial tool for easy mapping projects with students.

An article about GIS career pathways featuring one of our Crossing Boundaries advisory board members, Joseph Kerski.

"But how big is the spill, really? It's hard to get a sense of the true size when it's over the ocean floor. Use the links below to see how large the spill is."

One stop page for links to fun tools you or your students can use

I've used Animoto, Quizlet, Xtranormal and Dropbox. Love Quizlet and Dropbox....don't use Animoto or Xtranormal all that much although they are fun and your students might enjoy "playing".

Drop box is awesome - external storage site! Allows you to access files from any computer and up to 2G free storage. More with pay upgrade. I think I will link the Web Tools Index in my wiki for students to use at their convenience.

This website explains the high-tech systems used by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to hear, monitor, and protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, and you can see live info about where these whales have been detected within the past 24 hours.

"Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues."

Links to many Google Earth overlays

"Young Voices on Climate Change is a series of short films featuring young people using science and data to reduce the carbon footprint of their homes, schools, communities, and states. "

GIS Files of data for the world

Animal species all follow the same rule for how common they are in an ecosystem, scientists have discovered. And the rule is simple. Everything from birds to fishes, crabs to snails to worms, and the parasitic animals that live inside or on them, follows it. "You can predict how common something might be just by knowing its body weight--how big an individual is--and how high up the food chain it is," says biologist Ryan Hechinger , lead author of a paper in this week's issue of the journal Science.

GIS Links for state clearinghouses and federal data

"Bring your digital photos to life with Photo Story 3 for Windows. Download Photo Story 3 for free and experience your photos in amazing new ways"

The Land Use Calculator is a tool for rapid scenario analysis of land-use implications, useful for decision-makers to address real-world challenges and for classroom teaching of conservation biology, sustainable development, environmental economics and global change biology. It is a decision-support tool targeted at land-use decision-makers in the tropic, allowing users to evaluate the implications and tradeoffs of pursuing alternative development scenarios by simultaneously accounting for the societal priorities of agricultural production, economic development, carbon conservation and biodiversity protection. Users specify a few environmental and socioeconomic parameters describing a landscape scenario, and the tool determines the implications of that scenario in terms of biodiversity, carbon stocks, greenhouse-gas emissions, financial returns of the land and employment opportunities.

cut intro to global climate change

Some links are on my class website. I hope you may find some of them useful

The strategy provides recommendations for developing effective biosphere reserves and a framework for the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. It introduces the history of the Biosphere Reserves and the concept before outlining the vision and strategy as developed from the conference in Seville. Organization: UNESCO: MAB programme Sourced from: Report based on International Conference on Biosphere reserve