On June 16th, 2025, a cohort of  10 Florida high school teachers attended a new professional development workshop titled, “Ecological Competition Between Invasive and Native Species.”

The one-day workshop focused on exploring fundamental ecological concepts, with a particular emphasis on competition between invasive and native species. This workshop provided educators with insights into ecological research and environmental challenges, and how to bring hands-on experience of scientific experiments into their classrooms

During the workshop, teachers used an experimental kit to examine ecological competition between a native and invasive species of duckweed, a fast-growing aquatic plant. To do this, teachers worked with scientists to test different scenarios of how the ratio of the native to invasive species (more native, less invasive; more invasive, less native; and equal amounts of each) impacts the growth rate of each. After they were guided through the experiment, UF researchers showed the teachers how to analyze the results.

This project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

2025 Cohort

Jessica Baldwin headshot
Jessica Baldwin
Haines City High School
Polk County

 

Victoria Craig Headshot
Victoria Craig
West Port High School
Marion County

Zonnelle Hanley
Zonnelle Hanley
Florida A&M University Developmental Research School
Leon County

Sharon Haynes heashot
Sharon Haynes
Citrus High School
Citrus County

Valerie Ledford headshot
Valerie Ledford
Columbia High School
Columbia County

Elizabeth Searl headshot
Elizabeth Searl
Duncan U Fletcher High School
Duval County

Chelsey swats headshot
Chelsey Swats
King High School
Hillsborough County

Mary timko-mesmer headshot
Mary Timko-Mesmer
Lake Weir High School
Marion County

Jennifer troy headshot
Jennifer Troy
Newberry High School
Alachua County

Ryan Wolf headshot
Ryan Wolf
Santa Fe High School
Alachua County
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Photo gallery

One of the teacher uses a software called ImageJ to measure the amount of duckweed.
Jennifer Troy picking up small samples of lemna (duckweed) and placing them in a test tube. It’s trickier than it looks!
Ryan Wolf is taking pictures of the duckweed samples to analyze them.
Kara Taylor, a graduate student in the UF Department of Biology, is giving a presentation to the teachers about the experiment.
A close up of the duckweed!
One teacher photographing the duckweed samples to quantify the amount of each species in each sample later in the experiment.
Zonnelle Handley is taking a picture of the two duckweed samples to analyze in ImageJ.
Elizabeth Searl works with UF graduate student Kara Taylor.
Sharon Haynes works with Zonnelle Hanley to prepare the duckweed samples.
Dr. Matthew Leibold explaining the duckweed experiment to the teachers..

Instructors

Funding Sources

NSF logo