Teaching Philosophy

 

Photo: Sharing my juniper ecohydrology research with IGERT students and faculty at Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed. Photo credit: Richard Woodward

With climate change, a burgeoning population, and complex federal and state land management laws, students embarking on a career in environmental science or natural resources face a difficult task. As a teacher, I want to prepare students to be able to think broadly and clearly about these issues. My objective as a teacher is to prepare students to be leaders in environmental and natural resource careers. These career can range from public land management, private consulting, NGO, or personal family ranching or logging business. To prepare students for their careers, I have several goals when I am teaching a class:

1. develop problem solving skills;
2. develop the ability to think across disciplines;
3. prepare students for their career choice;
4. understand both the biophysical and the social issues of a given environmental problem.

To this end, I seek to accomplish this in a classroom setting by:

1. fostering inquiry-based learning;
2. giving students hands-on experiences;
3. fostering equal participation across race and gender;
4. providing learning experiences that directly relate to job skills;
5. studying an environmental problem form different stakeholder perspectives.

This is only a brief summary of my teaching philosophy, but it gives an overview of how I approach teaching.