NC STATE PLANT PATHOLOGY

Summer Workshop for High School Biology Teachers
Exploring Fungi:

Educators and Students as Co-Investigators of the
Ecology and Biogeography of Wood-decay fungi

With funding from North Carolina State's Department of Plant Pathology and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dr. Marc Cubeta will offer a workshop August 5, 6 and 7, 2013 for high school Biology and AP Environmental Science teachers. See below for details of the 2011 workshop. During the three-day, non-residential workshop, sessions will address the following topics:

• The role of wood decay fungi in nutrient cycling in forested ecosystems
• The use of fungi as model organisms to illustrate concepts in the North Carolina Standard Course Of Study (NCSCOS) for biology and environmental science
• The opportunities for informal science inquiry through local field work and collecting trips offered in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
• The student as co-investigator: opportunities for student participation in on-going biodiversity studies

A stipend of $500 will be provided to the participating teachers. Teachers will participate in outdoor and indoor lab activities and demonstrations. Materials for the workshop and for incorporating workshop activities into classroom lesson plans will also be available. Interested teachers should contact Marc Cubeta at macubeta@ncsu.edu for further information.

Registration

Criteria for selection include: Life sciences curriculum and maximizing the number of schools represented. More than one teacher from a school will be considered if spaces are available.

Selected teachers will be notified by the first week in May, 2013. Teachers selected to participate in the workshop will be contacted via e-mail and provided further schedule and materials information. Social security numbers will then be required to process the $500 stipend, issued upon completion of the workshop.

2012 Exploring Fungi Teacher Workshop

Five teachers from central North Carolina attended the July 2012 Teacher Workshop. Activities during the three day period included lab exercises to introduce fungi as model organisms for curriculum areas including ecosystems, nutrient cycling and decay and symbiotic relationships. The schedule of the 2010 workshop can be dowloaded from 2010 Schedule. Teacher comments on the workshop can be downloaded from 2012 Evaluations.

2012 Teacher Fungi Foray -- Schenck Forest

2011 Teacher Fungi Foray -- Schenck Forest

2010 Teacher Fungi Foray -- Schenck Forest

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0847868.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Contact:Dr. Marc A. CubetaI macubeta@ncsu.edu I NCSU Department of Plant Pathology
1410 Gardner Hall, Box 7616 Raleigh, NC 27695-7616