AIRE CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT GRANTS AWARDED IN 2001 DESCRIPTIONS Back to Table David Benzing, Professor, Biology Department, "Practicum in Sustainable Design for Buildings and Land Use", summer 2000: This project will allow students to learn through direct experience about such topics as wetlands, organic & sustainable agriculture, living machines as alternatives to conventional sewage treatment, restoration of degraded rural landscapes, and fundamentals of green building design. The Environmental Studies Center, its landscape, and certain operations planned for the Clark Farm will provide opportunities for students to design and implement experiments, and later share their knowledge about the aspects of ecologically sustainable activity in north central Ohio. Catherine McCormick, Professor, Biology, "Vertebrate Structure and Evolution", summer 2001: Discovery-based activities will be introduced to the format of the existing BIOL 203 course, "Vertebrate Structure and Evolution". The first half of the course will be taught using the old model of laboratory dissection and lecture, and the second half will find students providing "round table discussions" defending arguments on various topics related to evolutionary questions. Janice Thornton, Associate Professor, Neuroscience and Biology, "Introductory Neuroscience Course", summer 2001: This proposal has been provisionally accepted, and will be further developed closer to the starting date. The intent is to introduce discovery-based experiments to introductory- and upper-level Neuroscience courses.