Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

I will present my EnviroAtlas class activities at NCSE 2018

Posted 04 Jan 2018 / 0

I guess that some people are really good at planning out where they are going with their careers, but for me serendipity seems to play a really big role. Rather than charting a particular course and then plotting my expedition from “now” to “future goal”, I seem to be more apt to catch a wave Read More

A Major Post, Conferences, Conservation Biology, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Geography, Higher Education, MSWI-270C, Ecology, Environment, & the Anthropocene, Sustainability, Sustainable Urban Design, Teaching, Teaching Tools

BK BioReactor visualizes Gowanus Canal microbial communities

Posted 23 Sep 2017 / 0

Gowanus Canal images courtesy All-Nite Images via Wikimedia Commons My colleague Romie Littrell referred me to a really interesting project of the BK BioReactor group that visualizes microbial community diversity in the Gowanus Canal: http://www.bkbioreactor.com/visualization/ For those who are not familiar with the Gowanus Canal, an historically-important Brooklyn shipping lane that is now a Superfund Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biology (general), Bogs & Wetlands, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, DNA Barcoding, Ecological Restoration, Educational Software and Apps, Experiments (General), Freshwater Ecosystems, Genetics, Geography, Information Design, Intertidal Zones, Microbial Ecology, Web

What happens when a landscape ecologist takes on urban ecology

Posted 29 Jan 2014 / 0

What’s so cool about the work that Eric Sanderson is describing is that it really amounts to doing historical research using an ecological forensics approach. The idea of mapping out “probable areas” of different populations — including humans — using mapped data is pretty smart. It is amazing how humans have transformed Manhattan. Thanks to Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Architecture, Community Ecology, Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Geography, Geology, Habitat Destruction, History, Hydrology, Ponds & Lakes, Rivers & Streams, Sustainable Urban Design, Talks & Seminars, Temperate Forest, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Urban Ecology

Sweet Fern Productions puts Alfred Russel Wallace to paper

Posted 26 Jan 2014 / 0

Sweet Fern Productions “The Animated Life of A.R. Wallace” I loved the Sweet Fern video on whale fall, but this is even more valuable as a historical account of Wallace’s life. I really like the way that this video depicts natural selection! Great way of showing differential survival as Wallace might have seen it!

A Minor Post, Biography, Evolution, Evolution Education, Film, Television, & Video, Geography, History, Natural Selection, Science as a career, Science in Art & Design, Speciation, Teaching Tools, The WmD Project, Tropical Forest

US EPA’s EnviroAtlas project promises to give researchers, students new insights into the geography of ecosystem services

Posted 13 Aug 2013 / 0

At the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, I first learned about a really interesting initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project –now dubbed EnviroAtlas — is dedicated to creating a free, interactive online tool for exploring the geography of ecosystem services. I had the opportunity to check out a beta version Read More

A Major Post, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Climate Change, Computer Science, Conservation Biology, Deserts, Ecology, Ecology Education, Ecosystem Services, Educational Software and Apps, Environmental Justice, Freshwater Ecosystems, Geography, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Information Design, Invasive Species, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Rivers & Streams, Sociology, Sustainability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, Temperate Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Water Supply, Web

Dog license dataset opens up huge potential for understanding the dog-human mutualism

Posted 26 Jan 2013 / 0

WNYC “NYC’s Top Dogs: Mapping Names & Breeds in the City” WNYC “Dogs of NYC” Data sets like these, even flawed by their incompleteness (only 20% of dogs in New York City are registered) are fascinating. The human relationship with dogs has changed radically as we have urbanized as a species: I would suggest that the dominance Read More

A Minor Post, Canids, Coevolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Geography, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Mutualism, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Web