We are excited to be publishing our second volume of TIEE materials so soon after the completion of Volume 1. We warmly thank all of our authors and reviewers for their high quality, thorough, and lightning turn-arounds of reviews and revisions. Volume 2 of TIEE expands upon the contents of Volume 1 published in February 2004. Volume 2 also includes Experiments (inquiry-based labs), Issues for use in lecture, lab, and for homework, and the Teaching section which has www resources, essays, and tutorials. (To read about the purpose and history of TIEE see the TIEE Overview.)

In Volume 2, we introduce Frontiers Issues to Teach Ecology, a new type of Issue, which explains how to use specific articles from the new Ecological Society of America (ESA) journal, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, to actively engage students in class. Similar to the other Issues, students work with figures and tables and learn about ecology and the process of science as a result.

Frontiers Issues to Teach Ecology also contains a new subsection called “Scientific Teaching.” Based on a Science article by Handelsman et al. (2004), Scientific Teaching shows faculty how to do research on their teaching based on learning theories. Doing research on teaching is a lot like doing ecological research — you ask questions, collect data, and use the data to rethink your questions. (This is explained in more detail in the “Scientific Teaching” section of each Frontiers Issues.) We intend TIEE to be on the forefront of the growing nationwide interest in education research conducted by faculty in their own classrooms.

We plan to publish a third volume in January 2005. At that time we will also release a CD-ROM containing Volume 1-3. Again, because TIEE evolved from the Education Section of ESA and ecologists are authors, reviewers, and users, it is very much a community effort. In addition to submitting to TIEE, we ask for your suggestions and critiques (please email the TIEE Managing Editor at TIEEsubmissions@esa.org).

TIEE is sponsored by the ESA who hosts TIEE on their website, helps organize workshops at annual meetings, and give us invaluable advice. We also thank the Division of Undergraduate Education at NSF for supporting development of the site and CD-ROM (NSF DUE #0127388, #9952347, and #0085840).

Charlene D’Avanzo and Bruce W. Grant
August 2004