Department News

Life and Earth Sciences Professor Receives Grant Award
Dr. Michael Hoggarth, professor of Life and Earth Sciences, received an award of nearly $31,000 from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for his project: Freshwater Mussel Survey of Lake Erie Refugia. The purpose of this project is to sample probable refugia in Lake Erie for mussels. Drs. Hoggarth and Thomas (of OSU) recently discovered unknown communities of mussels in a marina and in river channels emptying into Lake Erie. The objective of this study is to determine if other such habitats also support mussels.

Department offers New "Global" Integrative Studies Courses
Otterbein College was selected with 16 other colleges and universities nationwide to share in the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) initiative: General Education for Global Learning. Several Department Faculty rose to the challenge of creating Integrative Studies courses with Global themes. Dr. Lisa Marr and Dr. Amy Jessen-Marshall developed "Plagues, Pestilence and Pandemics" a course that focuses on diseases in the world and their outbreaks are influenced by local traditions and customs. It also deals with global epidemiological issues such as emerging diseases, multi-drug resistance and disease shifts in response to global change.

Dr. Hal Lescinsky's global science course focuses on coral reef ecology and conservation. The course builds from the basic geology and biology of reefs, to how people in different countries use reefs, to the current coral reef crisis that is associated with global patterns of overfishing, bleaching, disease, and ocean acidification. Each student in the course researches the reefs of a different tropical country and the course culminates with a UN style meeting of coral reef managers where student representatives of each country work together to devise action plans to protect the world�s reefs and the people that use them.