When I was a small child, I loved being outdoors. Somehow, there never seemed to be enough time to spend climbing trees, digging in the dirt looking for "pill bugs", or catching crayfish at a local stream. Because my love of nature was fostered from a young age, it has directly influenced my chosen major and beliefs regarding the natural world. For this reason, I am so excited to be a part of the ECOS program this year, and hope that I might be able to foster an appreciation of the outdoors in the children I help educate.

I am currently an undergraduate Biology major with an emphasis in Ecology, and hope to continue on to graduate work and perhaps obtain my PhD. My research experience thus far has centered on amphibians and reptiles, particularly the Columbia Spotted Frog and the Western Painted Turtle. I hope to one day work for a non-profit conservation agency, such as the Nature Conservancy, or to do ecological research and perhaps eventually teach.

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I have been interested in life science since I was a child and ecology since high school.

As a child I became interested in dinosaurs and paleontology after visiting the Field Museum of Chicago.

All through high school my favorite subject was biology and I studied genetics outside of school.

I'm also a lifelong environmentalist and interested in learning and teaching others about the earth.

I would someday like to have a career as a middle-school science teacher, as well as continuing to study paleontology, genetics, and evolution.

I am interested in ECOS because someday I want to be the teacher who says "Yes" when students ask "Can we go outside today?" and have curriculum ready for outdoor learning.

Right now I just want to have fun with the kids and help current teachers get their classes outside and learning about the nature of science.

My biggest passion outside of science is swimming, and teaching/coaching swimming. I also like to hike, mountain bike, play a few musical instruments, sew, knit, cook, play games on the computer, and have competed in one triathalon.

I have lived in a variety of small towns in Montana and Wyoming, most recently Stevensville , MT and Missoula .

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My name is Allison Greene , and I was born in Nova Scotia , Canada . As both of my parents are ecologists, I grew up questioning and learning about the natural world. Some of my earliest memories are of feeding an injured bird with my mother or hiking through the Arizona desert with my father at night to help him capture moths. When my family moved to Missoula , I spent countless hours exploring the riparian area near our house.

Ecology was not my only passion, though. I loved ballet, and when I reached high school I was accepted to a professional ballet school in Winnipeg , Canada . Although I loved the dancing, the many hours I spent indoors made me realize how much I loved exploring and learning about the natural world. After two years at the school, I decided to return to Missoula to pursue a career in science.

Since beginning school at the University of Montana I have been involved in several research projects on amphibians, including research on dispersal and conservation of Colombia spotted frogs and surveys for tailed frogs and western toads. As well, I have worked on the behavior of bighorn sheep at the National Bison Range .

Since beginning my education, I have also worked as a ballet teacher. Through this work, I have realized that I really enjoy teaching children, and the ECOS program seemed to be the perfect opportunity to combine my interest in teaching with my love of science. As well, the program seemed to be a wonderful way to learn ways to effectively communicate with children and the public about science.

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Being raised in the Missoula valley provides ample opportunity to view and interact with nature. It is also an excellent place to live if one is interested in exploring the wilderness. Being an avid skier, climber and backpacker I have spent much of my free time in these wild places. Ecology has always been an interesting area of science for me, though it was not specifically taught in my primary education. It was in these wild places, more so than school that I first realized ecology was a discipline that I wanted to pursue. Entering a field in which the science happens outside, and it is your job to try and tease apart the hows and whys directly appeals to me and is an integral part of my aspirations in this field. Getting the chance to introduce young kids to ecology by first hand involvement in the outside world is what excites me the most about the ECOS program. This provides the unique chance to pull ecology from the back pages of a life sciences course and present it to students in a fun and approachable manner.

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I have always been curious about the natural world. Some of my favorite memories from childhood are of camping, hiking, learning about the wildlife and vegetation from my father, and just being in beautiful surroundings while living in Idaho, New Mexico, and Montana. Upon attending The University of Montana it seemed the next step for me was to study botany and ecology. The unaltered beauty of natural landscapes has always drawn me to plants. I thought a degree in ecology would nicely complement a degree in botany aiding in my understanding of how plants function and interact in their environment.

I would like to someday be able to educate others on how to improve the natural environment. There are many ways to achieve this goal and the ECOS program will be a great start. I also think that ECOS is an important program because teaching styles that involve creative, hands-on experiences seem to be more effective than others. I know that I retain more when learning this way. It is very exciting to think that I am going to be a part of an educational program that exposes possible future scientists to ecology, in a way that could spark an interest, changing their lives.

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