Tropical Forests: Ecology and Conservation

Liza Comita, Davis-Denkmann Professor of Tropical Forest Ecology

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Tropical forests play a crucial role in the earth's ecosystem. They provide ecosystem services that are critical for human well-being, including providing raw materials, regulating air and water quality, and mitigating climate change. They are also biodiversity hotspots supporting complex varieties of life. As tourist, recreational, and spiritual sites, tropical forests also provide cultural services to the human population. But they are vulnerable and face a variety of threats from both nature and the same human population that they serve.

This seminar will focus on the ecology of tropical forests. We will explore the ecosystem services they provide from the local to the global scales. We will discuss drivers and impacts of tropical deforestation and degredation, as well as the tropical forest recovery and restoration. The seminar may include field trips to the Peabody Museum and a local forest site.

Potential Curriculum Unit Topics

• Science teachers might develop units on climate change and the role of the tropical forest, how tropical forests regulate the quality of our air and water, the threat of deforestation and human overexploitation of resources and how tropical forests recover from
• Biology teachers might develop units on biodiversity and the conditions that promote life in tropical forests
• Literature and arts teachers might develop units on writings or artoworks about tropical forests and the meanings and symbolism attached to them by different writers, artists, movements, or different cultures.
• History and social sciences teachers might develop units on the cultural roles played by tropical forests as sites of tourism and spirituality, the history of activism around tropical forest conservation or the environmental movement

This seminar is for K-12 teachers in:

• STEM
• ELA
• Social Sciences