Teaching
Project
Ferenc is participating in the 2001
Teaching Scholars Program to learn additional techniques to teach
efficiently and to develop methods for students to access
information outside of the traditional classroom setting with
internet tools. His teaching project will involve Wetland
Ecology and Management, which is a new course at Kent State
University. He will develop an internet web page for this
course with links to material presented in lecture, online
quizzes, and an archive of images of different wetland habitats
and key species. Biography
Ferenc earned a B.
A. and M. S. in Biology from New York University and a Ph. D. in
Entomology from the University of California, Berkeley.
He
has been an Assistant Professor at Kent State University since
1998. His research
examines the ecology of invertebrates inhabiting wetlands, lakes,
and streams and tests how wildlife management practices affect
invertebrate and plant communities in these habitats.
His hobbies include woodworking, gardening, fishing, and
brewing beer.
He teaches three courses in the Department of Biological
Sciences: Invertebrate Zoology, Entomology, and Wetland Ecology
and Management. One of his teaching goals is to show
students how information they learn has real-world
applications. In Invertebrate Zoology, he developed a lab
exercise where students collect stream invertebrate samples and
apply technique used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
to assess water quality based on the invertebrate community
present in the stream habitat. This project not only teaches students invertebrate
identification, experimental design, statistics, scientific
writing, but also shows the students why these skills are useful.
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