Conferences & Training

Preliminary Agenda – Natural Heritage Methodology Training

Natureserve is reconfiguring this central training program in order to minimize travel distances and costs for attendees and instructors both—which should help maximize attendance and thus effectiveness for the entire network.

Participants will select which location they wish to attend: Arlington, Virginia; Fort Collins, Colorado; or Westborough, Massachusetts. Most sections will be taught live from at least one of the locations, and will be viewed simultaneously at all sites via web technology. Some portions will be taught independently at each site. Discussion sessions will happen daily at each site independently. Schedules will vary from day to day and site to site to accomodate simultaneous sessions despite the different time zones.

Preliminary Agenda
Topic: Live From:
Day 1 Intro to NatureServe and Natural Heritage Methodology Arlington
Ecology Overview Fort Collins
Species Science Overview Remote (Costa Rica)
Information Management Overview Arlington
Element Concepts and Classification Westborough
Element Ranking Westborough
Data Exchange All Sites
Day 2 Research and Field Methodology All sites
Element Occurrence Concepts I & II Arlington
EO Transcription and Mapping Westborough
Day 3 EO Concepts III Arlington
Benchmark Data Content Standards Fort Collins
Using Natural Heritage Data to Answer Information Requests All Sites
Handling Sensitive Data  Arlington
Discussion: Future Directions in Biodiversity Conservation All Sites
Day 4 Conservation Planning All Sites
Element Distribution Modeling Fort Collins
Ecology – in depth All Sites
Zoology – in depth All Sites
Botany – in depth All Sites