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2006 ANNUAL MEETING -- 24-28 JUNE, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, USA
The 20th annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, Conservation Without Borders, will be held 24-28 June 2006 in San Jose, California, USA. Advance registration is available until 9 June, after which individuals must register on site. Detailed information about all aspects of the meeting program, including but not limited to plenary, oral, and poster sessions; SCB member meetings; travel; field trips; and social events is available at the meeting Web site, www.ConservationBiology.org/2006. Here, we describe a sample of the meeting's special events and features.
SCIENTIFIC "SPEED DATING" A new experiment in presentation formats for scientific meetings
"I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
Dear participants in SCB's 2006 annual meeting: Are you -- Tired of attending a presentation of a paper that you expected to be exciting, discovering in the first two minutes that it doesn't interest you, and then suffering through the entire 15 minute talk because you are too polite to leave and trapped in a middle seat? -- Looking for opportunities to engage in detailed conversation with presenters whose work appealed to you, but who disappear immediately after their session? -- Frustrated because you cannot attend as many presentations as you would like during concurrent sessions? -- Jittery because modern life has left you with a really short attention span and insufficient time to digest all of the journal articles you should be reading? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, never fear, speed presentations are here! You may have heard of "speed dating," spending five minutes each with a dozen prospective dates. In honor of our 20th anniversary meeting, SCB is going to adapt this concept to conduct an exciting experiment in alternative formats for meeting presentations. At the 2006 annual meeting, in addition to the traditional formats for contributed oral and poster presentations, we will offer an experimental "speed presentation" option. We will have two speed presentation sessions. The first, from 4:00-6:00 P.M. on Sunday, 25 June, will include biologically-oriented papers. The second, from 10:00-12:00 A.M. on Wednesday, 28 June, will include social science and adaptive management-oriented papers. In the first hour of each session, 15 presenters will be given three minutes each to present their key ideas and results. In the second hour, presenters will station themselves at separate tables where they can interact with people who are interested in learning more about their work. We look forward to seeing you at the sessions. Together, we will evaluate the outcome of this experiment to determine whether speed presentations should become a regular feature of our annual meetings. Help us discover what happens when MTV meets SCB.
BRIDGING THE WORLDS OF SCIENCE AND JOURNALISM: A "How-To" WorkshopTuesday 27 June, 1:30-3:30 P.M. Learn to be a powerful communicator of your science. Whether talking to a journalist about a conservation debate, writing an op-ed for a local paper, or providing testimony for a government official, scientists are increasingly called upon to explain their work to public audiences. This hands-on session will provide you with practical tools and tips for translating your science to audiences outside of academia. You'll have a chance to practice these new skills and learn "do's and don'ts" of a successful media interview. A team of trainers including a journalist, Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows, and a science outreach specialist from SeaWeb / COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea) will share their insights and provide individual feedback on how to strengthen your message so that it resonates with your audience.
STUDENT AWARDSEach year, SCB administers a Student Awards program, with prizes that include cash and books. The 12 finalists for the 2006 Student Awards will present their papers in a special dedicated session on the afternoon of Monday, 26 June. In addition to presentations by student award finalists, the session will feature presentations by two recipients of SCB's 2006 Distinguished Service awards, Dee Boersma and Javier Simonetti. At 3:00 P.M., Dee, who also is Past President of SCB, will present What we learn from natural history of penguins. At 5:30 P.M., Javier, who also is Past President of the Austral and Neotropical America Section of SCB, will present Cats? No way! Can we conserve biodiversity in rural landscapes? These sessions will be moderated by SCB Past Presidents Mac Hunter and Deborah Jensen. Awards will be announced before Jack Dangermond's plenary presentation on the morning of Wednesday, 28 June.
NETWORK OF CONSERVATION EDUCATORS AND PRACTITIONERS WORKSHOPAt the last four annual meetings, the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) has organized workshops on teaching conservation at the university level. These sessions have been important in terms of generating feedback for the NCEP project, but also generated significant discussion among faculty and students on how to develop suitable resources for teaching biodiversity conservation. This year, NCEP again will be holding a workshop immediately after SCB's annual meeting. The purpose of this workshop is for a group of faculty members experienced in using NCEP modules to provide mentoring to faculty members new to the modules and project. In addition, workshop attendees will participate in the review and refinement of draft evaluation tools designed to measure student learning outcomes from using the NCEP modules. The dynamic is active and participatory; faculty members who have used the modules in their classroom will share how they were able to fit the module components into their syllabi, emphasizing both successes and challenges in terms of content integration and the use of active-teaching techniques. Professors with previous experience working with NCEP modules will be paired with novice faculty to work directly with the materials. New and experienced users will then develop and share specific plans for NCEP module use in current or planned future courses. The second day of the workshop will focus on student assessment of learning gains through discussion and revision of draft evaluation instruments designed to measure student mastery of key concepts for several modules. The workshop should be of interest to those who have participated in the NCEP project to date (module developers and faculty testers), academics and practitioners who wish to enhance biodiversity conservation training in their institutions, and all those interested in the process of classroom evaluation. We are particularly interested in new candidates from minority-serving institutions, but as always the most important characteristic is interest and enthusiasm in teaching about conservation. We have some funds to support participant travel, but also welcome participants already traveling to SCB with institutional support. If you are interested in this workshop, or would like more information about the project, please contact Christine Engels (cengels@amnh.org) or visit http://ncep.amnh.org/.
PLENARY AND KEYNOTE SESSIONSPlease join us for the presentations by the following distinguished guests. All sessions will be held in the San Jose Civic Auditorium. Sunday, 25 June, 8:30 A.M. Steven Sanderson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wildlife Conservation Society. Sunday, 25 June, 8:00 P.M. Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona. Monday, 26 June, 8:00 A.M. Bridging the Worlds of Science and Journalism. This plenary panel, moderated by Nancy Baron, Science Outreach Director, COMPASS / SeaWeb, will bring together leading science journalists to provide a behind-the-scenes look at how scientific research is covered in the press, the realities of reporting on conservation issues, elements of a successful science story, and what it takes to get your message across. Tuesday, 27 June, 8:30 A.M. James Estes, U.S. Geological Survey and University of California, Santa Cruz. Wednesday, 28 June, 8:00 A.M. Jack Dangermond, founder and president, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. Preceded by presentation of student awards.
CONCURRENT MEETING WITH SCGISThe ninth annual international conference of the Society for Conservation GIS will be held concurrent with SCB's annual meeting. The two societies share the goal of creating an international community of conservation professionals and GIS practitioners to build conservation capacity and promote geospatial technologies at local, regional, and global levels. Individuals registering for either meeting will be allowed to attend all events of both societies at no additional cost.
SPONSORSWe gratefully acknowledge the growing number of sponsors who have, as of 7 April, committed their time and resources to supporting SCB's 2006 annual meeting. Major support for Conservation Without Borders is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Christensen Fund, and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. We also thank Blackwell Publishing
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