Columns

• Teaching with Twitter

  

  Social media platforms, such as Twitter, are increasingly being used by scientists to share their ideas and findings with a global audience. Younger users, such as #undergraduate students, could benefit from engaging with these messages, in more than one ways. In this article, @AndreaPhillott, a Professor of #ConservationBiology at FLAME University, Pune, describes how her students benefitted from an assignment with Twitter.

  Posted on Jun 18, 2021 in Conservation Biology, Teaching, Personal Experience & Undergraduate

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• Teaching evidence-based conservation

  

  Conservation research can be key to making effective conservation policies, but only when the policymakers are trained to understand and critically analyse its findings. In this article, Andrea D. Phillott highlights numerous resources that can help educators train students – future conservationists – in the use of evidence-based conservation. Phillott is a Professor in Environmental Studies and teaches Conservation Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Studies at FLAME University, Pune.

  Posted on Apr 08, 2021 in Environmental Sciences, Conservation Biology, Wildlife Biology, Teaching, Undergraduate & Education

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• Common misconceptions in biology: Species richness and diversity are the same?

  

  What’s the measure of species diversity of a habitat? Is it the number of inhabitants? Is it the number of species? Or is it the presence of a rare species? In this article, field biologist Abhijeet Bayani throws light on how he approaches this question of species ‘diversity’ in his classroom (a.k.a nature), while ensuring that his undergraduate students do not confuse it with a very related concept of species ‘richness’.

  Posted on Jan 11, 2021 in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Wildlife Biology, Teaching, Undergraduate & Education

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• Reading popular literature helps build disciplinary literacy - An example from conservation science

  

  Andrea D. Phillott, Professor in Environmental Studies, teaches Conservation Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Studies at FLAME University, Pune. In this article, she writes about an innovative approach she has followed to develop disciplinary literacy in her students viz., assigning them readings from popular literature, both fiction and non-fiction, pertaining to conservation science.

  Posted on Jan 27, 2020 in Ecology, Conservation Biology & Undergraduate

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• Café Oikos: Ecology & conservation straight from the horse’s mouth

  

  Café Oikos, a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit initiative, is the brainchild of engineer-turned-ecologists Anisha Jayadevan and Shishir Rao. It is a free and open public event regularly held at Bengaluru bookstores or cafés wherein people from all walks of life can come to learn about ecology and conservation research directly from active scientists. In this article, Anisha writes about how Café Oikos came to be, and what it aims to achieve.

  Posted on Sep 13, 2019 in Ecology, Conservation Biology & Science communication

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• Sixty percent of threatened Indian mammals are endemic

  

  Kailash Chandra, Director of Zoological Survey of India gives a quantitative glimpse on the status of threatened species endemic to India. He also talks about the research fellowships and publications offered by the institute.
  

  Posted on Aug 31, 2018 in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Personal Experience, Undergraduate & Research

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• Hanging out with the lions

  

  Meena Venkataraman is a wildlife biologist based in Mumbai. Her research focuses on developing strategies for conservation and management of Asiatic Lions.
  

  Posted on Aug 18, 2017 in Conservation Biology, Career Development & Personal Experience

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