First, ecology provides opportunities for ways of thinking different than those predominate in cell biology and genetics. While those disciplines tend to involve you in reductionist approaches to the subject matter, ecology calls on you to take an approach that is synthetic and holistic. The challenge and the excitement of ecology arise from the challenge of linking and arranging ideas and information from many sources in an effort to weave a tapestry revealing the "big picture" of how life works. As I have heard Gene Odum say, "ecology can become the science of just about everything." If you engage this course fully, you should involve youself in strong exercises in critical thinking.

A second reason to be interested in ecology has to do with the subject's potential importance to human life on earth. In my opinion, the number one issue for citizens of the planet should be knowledge and careful management (assuming we are capable of doing that) of the environment. I happen to rank education second, and the economy fourth or fifth. If the environment that sustains human well-being fails, then what good will education, wealth, or anything else be? I rank education second, because I think it will take great knowledge, combined with great wisdom, to postpone the inevitable extinction of Homo sapiens