BioDiversifying the Curriculum.

The conundrum of biodiversity is that there’s so much of it, more species than a person can count, more interactions than a supercomputer could calculate. At the same time, this unknown quantity is getting smaller at an alarming rate. Biodiversity as a life sciences subject touches evolution, ecology, conservation biology, and environmental studies. The educational challenge is to infuse biodiversity into the curriculum while emphasizing the science and addressing common misconceptions and gaps in student knowledge about biodiversity. What is biodiversity? Why is biodiversity important? Where is biodiversity? How does it arise? In a previous review (Liu, 2005), I focused on websites that support the teaching of evolution. The websites featured in that review continue to be outstanding resources. In particular the Understanding Evolution website (http://evolution. berkeley.edu) of the Berkeley Museum of Paleontology is a dynamic website that addresses biodiversity in relation to evolution. For this review, I emphasize some of the products of evolution, systematics, communities of organisms, and the environment, rather than the underlying genetic mechanisms of evolution.