Topic: The Learning Cycle 3
Lauer ( Sept. 2003 ).  Conceptualizing Ecology: A Learning Cycle Approach. The American Biology Teacher, 65, 518-521.

Summary: The article “Conceptualizing Ecology: a Learning Cycle Approach” starts by describing the difficulty many students have in dealing with “jargon” heavy scientific concepts. The author suggests (and right-fully) that Ecology is one of those fields. He establishes that students get turned off very early in the discussion of ecology because the terms are so different, unique and complex. He is involved in teaching a introductory ecology course and suggests his use of “games and simulations” have helped his students learn, and hence, apply terms appropriately. He states that his classroom games are specifically designed to accomplish two goals: 1) promote the understanding and comprehension of terms, and 2) break up the monotony and drudgery of lecture. He also suggests that “…both students and instructors respond positively to multiple teaching strategies”. He builds his simulations on the three-stage learning cycle concept of instruction: Exploration phase, Term Introduction phase, and Concept Application phase (Lawson, 2000). He then lists and describes three examples of games/simulations he has used successfully to teach terminology in large (>70 students) ecology courses. The three games are centered on three major ecological concepts: 1) Physiological Ecology: in which students are required to participate in observations of behaviors specific to environmental conditions; 2) Population Ecology: in which students are set up to solve a puzzle or maze, which is designed to introduce the concept of competition for limited resources. and 3) Ecosystem ecology: in which students perform and interact as various organisms within an ecosystem to help conceptualize higher order ecological relationships such as predator/prey dynamics, food web interactions, and mating.

Reaction: This is a very effective article in laying out the procedures for the various simulations. It is concise and explanatory. There are also “Instruction Cards” provided as figures in the article, which help the instructor to plan and execute each design. Additionally, there is considerable flexibility inherent the simulation designs. The first game is one that would work well with just about any size class, but does present some challenges regarding appropriate set up conditions for success (would really only work well when the outside ambient temperature is quite low). The second game is quite simple and could be adjusted for the class size and grade level. The third scenario is quite involved and complicated and would necessitate a large class of 30-40 students, minimum. One positive is that this game can be adjusted to accommodate very large groups (>100) However, it takes a considerable amount of time would very difficult to complete in less than about 3 hours.