JoinAll Case Studies
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In keyword search, list the criteria you would like to find cases. Multiple criteria can be listed separated by commas (i.e. directed, high school)
Educational levels are defined as follows: Elementary, Middle, High School, College
Types of cases are defined as follows: Analysis/Issues, Clicker, Debate, Intimate Debate, Demonstration, Dilemma/Decision, Directed, Discussion, Interrupted, Jig-saw, Journal Article, Laboratory, Student Presentations, Mini-case, Problem-Based Learning, Public Hearing, Role-Play, Trial, Flipped, Game
Nutrient Cycles and Pollution, Lake Michigan Style
By Cheryl A. Heinz
This “clicker case” introduces students to the basics of nutrient cycling using a recent example of the expansion of a refinery on Lake Michigan. The story is told through a series of news clips from Chicago’s National Public Radio affiliate, W...
By Kristina Hannam
This “clicker case” focuses on the food web of the riparian bird communities of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystemand how community structure and productivity may be influenced by top-down mechanisms, resulting in a trophic cascade. As students ex...
Fishing for Answers in the Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone
By Kristina Hannam
This “clicker case” addresses the eutrophication of aquatic systems caused by human activities. "Susan" is a biology student working at a seafood restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. She discovers that the restaurant doesn't serve locally caught shr...
By Nancy M. Boury
This "clicker case" focuses on the invasive aquarium strain of Caulerpa taxifolia as a way of introducing students to issues about invasive species. Specifically, students learn to identify some of the traits that make a species potentially invasive ...
By Jennifer Y. Anderson, Diane R. Wang, Ling Chen
Tom and his grandfather, a retired high school chemistry teacher, are talking about a National Geographic television documentary titled “Waking the Baby Mammoth.” As students read the dialogue that ensues, they learn how carbon, an essential elem...
By Keely Roen
In this interrupted case study, students view a documentary film about a coyote hunting contest and then assume the role of various stakeholders in coyote management in the western United States to explore issues associated with wildlife management. ...
Global Climate Change: Evidence and Causes
By Maureen Knabb, Timothy M. Lutz, G. Winfield Fairchild
This “clicker case” begins by assessing students’ impressions of global climate change and the role that human activities play in recent global warming trends. Students assume the role of an intern working for a U.S. senator. They need to under...
Global Climate Change: Impact and Remediation
By Maureen Knabb, Timothy M. Lutz
This “clicker case” is a continuation of another case in our collection, “Global Climate Change: Evidence and Causes,” in which students assumed the role of an intern working for a U.S. senator so that they could advise the senator on future ...
The Ecological Footprint Dilemma
By Bruno Borsari
Is it better to have a new parking lot on campus or use that space to develop a community garden? This is the issue presented in this "clicker case," which pulls students into the decision-making process. Students learn about concepts related to sust...
By Joan Sharp
This "clicker case" is modified from Martin Kelly's case study "As the Worm Turns: Speciation and the Apple Maggot Fly," also in our collection. Classic cases of incipient speciation such as the apple maggot fly and the hawthorn maggot fly are an exc...
By Frank J. Dinan, Thomas R. Stabler, Renee Larson
This interrupted case study highlights the importance of energy considerations within food chains by examining the population decline of Steller sea lions along the western Alaskan coast. A ban on commercial fishing of pollock in the 1970s caused a s...
By Robert Leaf, Brian R. Murphy
In this case, students read about a biologist who needs to determine how to analyze age-at-length data, a common situation in fisheries biology. The fictional Dr. Latimer is tasked with fitting non-linear models to the data, and the case develops as ...
By Courtney E. Quinn, John E. Quinn
This PowerPoint case (~2.4 MB) was developed for an undergraduate, non-majors course in conservation biology. It explores the controversy surrounding land purchases in the Patagonia region of Chile and Argentina. According to local indigenous peoples...
By Melanie K. Rathburn, Karina J. Baum
Many students take the availability of water for granted. This case study, which focuses on the Cochabamba water revolt in Bolivia, is designed to encourage students to think about water as a limited natural resource. Students learn about the limited...
By Kathleen Archer, Lauren Sahl
This interrupted case study focuses on the seasonal hypoxic area in the Gulf of Mexico known as the Dead Zone. It follows Sue, a college student, whose father is a commercial fisherman affected by the lack of fish in his usual fishing grounds in the ...
By Elizabeth Clark
In this case study, students hear arguments on both sides of a debate over wildlife management and must integrate ethical and scientific perspectives to formulate their own opinions. The case as written is most appropriate for an environmental ethics...
By Mark L. Kuhlmann
In this case study, students examine data from a number of published studies of the effects of Pacific salmon on freshwater and riparian ecosystems. The case focuses on the interesting phenomenon of spawning salmon acting as nutrient conveyor belts, ...
Darwin's Finches and Natural Selection
By Cheryl A. Heinz, Eric Ribbens
In this "clicker case," students learn about natural selection through the research of Peter and Rosemary Grant and colleagues on the finches of the Galapagos Islands. Students are presented with data in the form of graphs and asked to determine what...
By Matthew S. Kaufman
This case study uses a PowerPoint-driven approach combined with role-playing to explore issues surrounding the grey seal population off the coast of New England, specifically Chatham, Massachusetts. After gathering information, the students take the ...
Exaggerated Traits and Breeding Success in Widowbirds
By J. Phil Gibson
Sexual selection has led to the evolution of interesting traits and behaviors in many animal species. In widowbirds, males undergo a dramatic change in plumage coloration and produce exceptionally long tail feathers during the breeding season. This c...
By Conrad Toepfer
In this interrupted case study, students apply the scientific method to probe possible reasons behind declining marine iguana populations in the Galapagos Islands. Initially students are given rudimentary information and encouraged to generate wide-r...
The Case of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
By Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall, Jennifer Merriam, Ruth Ann Greuling
Based on the disputed rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in April 2005, this interrupted case study tells the story of a fictional character, "Brad Murky," a student and research assistant who must decide whether the current evidence is suffi...
By Linda Markowitz, Catherine Dana Santanello
The main objective of this case is to have students critically examine the costs and the benefits associated with ecotourism, a form of tourism usuallly involving visiting fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas intended as ...
By Susan M. Galatowitsch, Barbara A. Peichel
The essential elements of this dilemma case are based on a real-life wetland mitigation problem. A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has to decide whether to improve a wetland adversely impacted by toxins or restore another site inste...
Can Suminoe Oysters Save Chesapeake Bay?
By Valerie Nieman, Zhi-Jun Liu
This dilemma case explores the controversy over introducing non-native oysters to the Chesapeake Bay as a means of improving its ecological and economic health. Developed for use in an interdisciplinary doctoral program in energy and environmental st...
But It's Just a Bottle of Water
By Lindsey May, Jessica Kotke, Charles R. Bomar
Bottled water, popular among students, is big business even though issues surrounding it related to health and safety as well as its environmental impact have stirred up controversy. Designed for an introductory non-majors environmental science cours...
The Ecology of Opuntia Fragilis (Nuttall) Haworth
By Eric Ribbens
This interrupted case is based on the author's own personal research on the fragile prickly pear cactus in Stearns County, Minnesota. The data described is a product of the work of several undergraduate students at St. Johns University, which partial...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This interrupted case is based on a 2005 article in Nature written by three scientists from the Imperial College London that deals with the issue of sexual vs. asexual reproduction and their relative merits—a question that has bedeviled biologists ...
By Robert H. Grant
Through a series of fictionalized diary entries, this case recounts the 1939 discovery by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (and identification by J.L.B. Smith) of a living coelacanth, a fish believed to be extinct for over 70 million years. Developed for u...
By Lisa Carloye
This case explores the aggressive mimicry behavior of the femme fatale firefly - female fireflies in the genus Photuris that mimic the flash pattern of females in the genus Photinus in order to lure Photinus males to their death. The case consists of...
By Kari E. Benson
In this interrupted case study, students work in teams to interpret behavioral data with respect to evolutionary biology. Specifically, the case examines the behavior of alarm calling in a certain type of squirrel, Belding's ground squirrel, wh...
Is Guaiacum Sanctum Effective Against Arthritis?
By Eric Ribbens, Barbra Burdett, Angela Green
Dr. Beth Tonoany, a tropical population ecologist, is studying an unusual tree, Guaiacum sanctum, in the tropical forests of Central America. Interestingly, several local Ticos have told her that they use the tree for medicinal purposes. Students rea...
By Martin Kelly
At what point in evolutionary development does a group of individuals become two distinct species? This case addresses that fundamental question by asking students to decide whether apple maggot flies are distinct as a species from hawthorn maggot fl...
By Erica F. Kosal
In this case study, students speculate on what may have caused a major fish kill in an estuary in North Carolina. In the process, they explore how land runoff and excess nutrients affect aquatic communities, and learn about the complex life cycle of ...
By Charles R. Bomar
This case explores conservation and social issues associated with the destruction of vast tracts of farmland in the Great Plains in the late 1800s caused by massive swarms of the Rocky Mountain Locust, Melanoplus spretus. The case was developed for a...
First in Flight, Last in Wetlands Preservation?
By John Petersen, Nancy London
Developed for an introductory environmental studies course, this case study explores the ecological, economic, and legislative issues associated with land development and wetland loss. Students role-play the points of view of four different stakehold...
By Dennis Kingery
In 1958, black bass were introduced into Lake Atitlan in the highlands of western Guatemala as a way to attract tourism and boost the local economy, but unforeseen complications resulted in an ecological disaster. Developed for an introductory course...
Rabbit Calicivirus Disease - Magic Bullet or Pandora's Box?
By Gary M. Fortier
The characters in this dilemma case, representing the scientific community and government, must make a decision about whether or not to release a virulent pathogen into the environment in order to control the rapidly expanding population of European ...
Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis
By Eric Ribbens
This case is based on a research paper about the lignin content of genetically modified corn published in the American Journal of Botany. Students are asked to analyze and discuss the paper, focusing on questions related to experimental design and in...
By Philip Camill
This case makes use of the concept of the "ecological footprint," developed by Wackernagel and colleagues to quantify the amount of land area required to sustain the lifestyle of a population of any size. Students calculate their consumption of energ...