My general approach to teaching:
In preparing each course I teach, I explore content from past offerings of similar courses and follow some combination of materials from the courses and instructors that I find to be most inspiring and effective. I try to use diverse teaching and evaluation methods to enhance scientific literacy and to enhance students’ technical understandings of the processes underlying global change issues they often hear about in the media (climate change, ozone layer depletion, ocean acidification, water security issues, eutrophication, and beyond). These included different combinations of: flipped classroom scenarios; in class problem solving; journal clubs; instructional videos and online content; in class presentations of term papers and ‘news and views’ style essays. In upper-level undergraduate and graduate classes I try other, less conventional approaches that have sometimes included technical workshops on data manipulation and use of basic statistical or modelling software, plus special work periods (beyond regular class hours) to guide students through data management and analysis. These often involve guest lectures and support from postdoctoral and graduate trainees in my lab. At all times, I aim to eliminate activism and politics from the topics that I cover, with the goal of training each student to explore the science with an open and skeptical mind.
courses offered by dr. bogard at the university of lethbridge
BIOL 4850/5850 - Biogeochemistry
The content in this course bridges the Biological Sciences and Environmental Sciences programs at the University of Lethbridge. We explore the elemental cycling of major components of local and global biogeochemical cycles. Topics include exploring the transfer of energy and nutrients within terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and the interactions among sources of nutrients to each ecosystem. We look at the movement of the elements (for example, carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and sulfur (S))and their incorporation into other minerals and solutes as they transfer from the atmosphere, through terrestrial ecosystems and into aquatic systems. We explore how modern biogeochemical cycles of individual elements came to be, and how human activities are modifying these cycles.
BIOL 4840 - Limnology
Limnology (the study of lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and wetlands) is the science that underlies protection of water quality and fisheries. In this class, lectures, laboratory activities, and independent projects provide students with an introduction to the properties of aquatic communities and ecosystems. We cover a wide range of topics that include: the watershed and its hydrology; fluxes of nutrients and materials through aquatic systems; ecosystem structure and habitat dynamics; an evaluation of major plant, animal, and microbial communities; food webs and feeding interactions; and human impacts on limnological properties of systems.