By Shinichi Asao
How do paradigms change in ecology? Do we need new ideas to make sense of the rapidly changing environment? Can students create a new way for us to understand nature? Come find out at The Front Range Student Ecology Symposium on February 19th – 20th at Colorado State University. The theme for this year is “Leading Ecology: Challenging Paradigms in a Changing World”.
The Front Range Student Ecology Symposium is entirely run by a group of students in CSU’s Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, and sponsored by various departments and community donors. In this 19th year, the Symposium will feature 45 oral and 50 poster presentations by graduate, undergraduate, and even elementary students from schools along the Front Range and more. Check out the abstracts here.
EcoPress interviewed the Coordinating Committee (Amber Childress, president; Graham Tuttle, vice-president; Carlyn Perovich, secretary; Sam Dunn, treasurer) about The Front Range Student Ecology Symposium.
What are you most excited about for this year’s Symposium?
We are excited to have received the largest number of presentations in the history of the Symposium and especially to have elementary school students present. The Symposium is open to the public, and we are expecting more than 200 people to attend.
What are you most worried about?
Invoices and receipts. But we are optimistic that the Symposium will go smoothly. We have been working on the Symposium since May last year.
Why the theme for this year and the keynote speaker Dr. Daniel Simberloff?
Dr. Simberloff is a pioneer in ecology, and we wanted to promote the idea of challenging paradigms by having him as a keynote speaker. We hope the presentations will spark conversations that lead to a discovery of new paths toward a deeper understanding of the changing environment.
Thank you.
EcoPress will be covering the Symposium, starting with the keynote address “Invasion impacts: What’s the evidence, and why the controversy?” by Dr. Daniel Simberloff, a Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Check out the schedule here. Stay tuned for our coverage.
