Sustainability In Biodiversity

Biodiversity conservation and sustainability are the two major challenges on a global scale in all ecosystems and communities around the world. Multiple factors affect these two in complex ways, and both the areas are often identified as ‘wicked’ problems in ecology. As such, both the topics can be approached by fieldwork, tracking the underlying connections that affect the quality of human life and provide evidence-based feedback on policy matters. In my research statement, I provide an outline of my work in both biodiversity and sustainability areas.
For my dissertation in ecology, I studied the biodiversity and dynamics of the understorey community in Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) in the Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu in India. KMTR is located in a biodiversity hotspot in Agastyamalai range and is home to a large number of …show more content…
Sustainability education is one of the proximal goals of ecoliteracy. Further, ecoliteracy education for younger students has benefits in other curriculum areas as well. Developing higher cognitive thinking in students is one of the goals of ecoliteracy. Cognition is also one of the domains of ecoliteracy and the focus of my dissertation and research work with young children. It ties with other areas of the curriculum because of the emphasis placed by common core for providing higher cognitive tasks for the students. Would students be able to engage in higher cognitive activities if they are produced via nature-based activities? This is a question that my dissertation in education addresses. For this study, I prepared several special texts to introduce increasingly complex ecological concepts at 2-week intervals. The picture book read-aloud strategy was followed by student responses to the text in writing and by drawing. I am currently preparing two manuscripts with data collected from this