Transforming the "Principles" of Fisheries and Wildlife Management to engage students in an active-learning, case-based exploration of fish and wildlife conservation in the global environment.
Need- Principles of Fisheries and Wildlife Management (FIW 2114) is a required course for all Fisheries and Wildlife Science (FIW) majors, most College of Natural Resource majors, and fulfills the Core Area 7 requirement for “Critical Issues in a Global Context” for students university-wide. The goal of FIW 2114 is to introduce approximately 150-250 students/semester to the “basic principles guiding the management of fish and terrestrial animals in wild habitats.” The “management of organisms, habitats, and human users is examined in terms of biological, chemical/physical, ecological, and sociological theories and practices using global examples from both recreational and commercial resources (VT Undergraduate Catalog 2006-2007).”
The field of fish and wildlife management is undergoing a rapid transformation away from single-species focused management (e.g. managing deer populations for hunting) towards ecosystem-based management of multiple resources for multiple user-groups (e.g. managing oyster populations to benefit Chesapeake Bay human fishing communities and non-human aquatic organisms). Several factors are driving this change in research and teaching focus, including 1) increasing human populations and associated development that pressures the availability and survival of natural resources, and 2) global climate change that threatens fish and wildlife communities in complex ways. We must refocus our teaching efforts to incorporate new “Principles” of FIW management that have emerged over the past decade as well as a general movement to include conservation of threatened and endangered fish and wildlife resources in addition to management of game animals.
Activities – I have received a VT CEUT Summer Faculty Fellowship to work towards the following objectives.
- Redesign the current FIW 2114 course to reflect the changing direction of the field of fisheries and wildlife management in this era of globalization of environmental problems and solutions.
- Work with colleagues with special expertise in Fisheries Sciences, Green Engineering, and Humanities, Science, & Environment to best adapt course content to the diverse student body.
- Develop a course packet for students that will link classroom-based case-studies in a cohesive format to communicate new and old ‘Principles” in the absence of a proper text-book.
For more information on the Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Education and the Summer Faculty Fellowships, please see: