Daniel Bisaccio
Lecturer in Education and Director of Science Education
Barus 202a
(401) 863-3428 (phone)
(401) 863-1276 (fax)
Daniel_Bisaccio@brown.edu
www1.sprise.com/shs/habitatnet/default.htmCurriculum Vitae
Prior to joining Brown University’s Education Department, Dan Bisaccio was hired as the Math/ Science/ Technology Division Head charged to develop and implement a program to meet the needs of all students for the 21st Century at Souhegan High School (a public school in Amherst, New Hampshire). SHS has received a number of state and national awards for offering public school students’ authentic research and interdisciplinary opportunities in academic areas as well for developing a science program that has 90% of all students graduating with at least 4 years of science credits. At SHS, Dan has taught advanced biology, tropical ecology, and a Conservation Biology & Literature senior seminar as well as developing and teaching ongoing professional development workshops for teachers and interns. Dan also leads a number of professional institutes for science teachers around the nation annually. His teaching methodology and research has been highlighted in several books, on National Public Radio, and on a CBS TV special focused on public education.
He was an adjunct faculty member at Keene State College where he taught geology for eighteen years and continues at Northeastern University teaching a tropical terrestrial ecology course at the Moorea / Tahiti, French Polynesia - field station each February.
Dan’s on-going research with the Smithsonian Institution’s Biodiversity & Monitoring Program involves secondary and college students with authentic field research opportunities at several tropical sites in Central and South America as well as the South Pacific. His work has been recognized by the United Nations Environmental Program (Convention on Biological Diversity) where he is an active contributor to their international biological diversity education outreach committee and has presented, with his students, pedagogical as well as biological research at United Nations Conferences on Biological Diversity (Montreal, CA – May, 2007; May, 2008 -Bonn, Germany). In 2009, Dan will be taking current students to a UNEP Convention on Biological Diversity in Japan.
Dan has been the recipient of many national, state, regional teaching awards – including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching as well as authoring several articles on educational pedagogy and practice.
Office Hours
Office Hours
Thursday: 3:00 - 5:00 or by appointment
Degrees
Antioch / New England M.S.T., 1984
Terrestrial Ecology / Secondary Science Education
St. Lawrence University B.S., 1976
Geology / Biology Baker Scholar
Publications
-2007-Bisaccio, D., Full Contact Ecology.Connections - National School Reform Faculty., Spring, 2007
-2003-Bisaccio,D., Conducting biodiversity research with secondary-school science classes. The Lowland Maya Area: Three millennia at the human-wildland interface. (Gomez-Pompa, Allen, M., Fedick, Jimenez-Osornio (ed.)
-2007-Bisaccio,D., HabitatNet: a global biodiversity project.Gincanino. United Nations Environmental Programme, December,2007
-2008, AMBIO A Journal of the Human Environment - Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2008, Bisaccio, D., Vulnerability of tropical forest ecosystems to large hurricanes: multiple responses across complex seral landscapes.
-- back to top --Activities
- Open House Schedule
Open House Dates
Our Open House and personal interview dates have been set and they are as follows:
Open House 1: Friday, November 6, 2009, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm.
Open House 2: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm.
Open House 3: Friday January 29, 2010, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm.
Personal interviews will be held on the same dates and will take place in the morning and early afternoon preceding the Open House. You may arrange an interview with the relevant program Director (Carla Shalaby: Elementary; Laura Snyder: English; Maureen Sigler: History/Social Studies; Dan Bisaccio: Biology/Science) by emailing Karl Dominey our Academic Department Coordinator (Karl_Dominey@brown.edu) or calling 401-863-2407.
- HabitatNet - A Global Biodiversity Project
HABITATNET: A GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY MONITORING PROJECT
Project Director: Dan Bisaccio – Brown University
How humans relate with the natural world has deep cultural foundations. Throughout the history of all civilizations, our relationship with nature has given us art, music, verse, mathematics, and science. Today our global imperative is to understand the implications of our interdependence with nature.
HabitatNet was developed and authored by the project director and received a National Science Teachers Association environmental science Tapestry Grant to initiate the project in 1996. The goal of HabitatNet is to enable teachers and students (1) to establish permanent biodiversity monitoring projects around the globe; (2) use telecommunications, via email and world wide web sites, to communicate student investigations, findings, and questions regarding biodiversity issues and management; and (3) occasionally convene secondary students from around the globe for Youth Conventions on Biological Diversity (January , 2005 was the First Summit - El Eden, MX and a Second Summit is now being organized for July, 2009 – Ottawa, CA).
Using the Smithsonian Institute Man and Biosphere Permanent Biodiversity’s protocol and other activities and resources written by the project director, teachers and students are invited to develop permanent plots at sites nearby their home schools.
The project director, students and teachers have been developing long-term permanent biodiversity monitoring plots at each of the following sites:
• El Eden Ecological Reserve: Quintana Roo, Mexico
• Moorea / Tahiti French Polynesia
• Blue Mountains National Park: Jamaica, West Indies
• La Hesperia, Ecuador & San Cristobal Island, Galapagos
• Amherst, NH USA
The pedagogical focus of this project is to put into practice the recommendations from the AAAS, NSTA, and numerous state education departments call for restructuring science education for the 21st Century. In short, the project’s hope is for students to learn scientific habits of mind while conducting research that contributes to our species understanding of the interdependence between all species and their habitat. Knowledge, in terms of this project, is therefore defined as a verb. Students, who derive meaning through their own field investigations versus passively accepting knowledge as unproblematic givens, will truly be the more knowledgeable students.
Areas of Expertise
click an area title to see other department faculty with expertise in the same area|
Curriculum Development International Education |
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Courses
EDUC0900 - Fieldwork and Seminar in Secondary Education
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