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Conservation Biology
Conservation Biology Teaching Philosophy
Most conservation biologists fall into one of two categories: those whose graduate training gave them the background required to become college or university professors, and those who successfully finished their degrees only to discover that the skills needed to effectively work outside of academia had somehow fallen through the cracks of their graduate school experience.
Talk to biologists who work at state or federal wildlife agencies, or who are employed by environmental consulting firms, or who create ways to inventory or monitor rare species for non-profit conservation groups, and ask them whether their master’s or doctoral degrees really gave them the specific training they needed to do their day-to-day tasks. Often, unfortunately, you’ll find that the answer is “no.” For many biologists working outside of academia, the knowledge that seemed so important as they studied for a particular class is often irrelevant to their “real world” job.
Antioch’s Conservation Biology Program addresses this problem by training practitioners, not theoreticians. We emphasize acquisition of field and technical skills—such as how to conduct wildlife and botanical inventories, map habitat types, and design effective monitoring schemes. More conceptual topics, ranging from the effects of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity to the proper use of statistical analyses, are discussed using real examples that link theory and practice.
© 2007 Antioch University New England, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431-3516 800.553.8920