Achievement

The primary outcome defining the trainees’ educational experience is the project-driven, problem-solving nature of the Core Course curriculum. While the trainees do get a two semester sequence of lectures covering the variety of disciplines encompassed in Reverse Ecology, they learn more about how to execute an integrative research project by taking a leading role in identifying and defining the nature of that project. The year’s project was greatly enhanced by the integration of the research infrastructure of the NSF LTER network, allowing field samples to be obtained from a wider geographic range than was feasible with local resources. The trainees were provided with contact information at LTER sites in Virginia and Georgia and arranged for researchers at those sites to collect plant samples to expand the scope of their project.