Terrestrial Ecologist

Tom Wessels is an ecologist and was the founding director of the master’s degree program in Conservation Biology at Antioch University New England. He is the former chair of The Center for Whole Communities, an organization that fosters inclusive communities that are strongly rooted in place and where all have access to and a healthy relationship with land. He also served as the chair of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation that fosters environmental leadership through graduate fellowships and organizational grants. He serves as an ecological consultant to the Rain Forest Alliance’s SmartWood Green Certification Program. In that capacity, Tom helped draft green certification assessment guidelines for forest operations in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. Tom has conducted landscape-level workshops throughout the United States for over 30 years. His books include Reading the Forested Landscape, The Granite Landscape, Untamed Vermont, The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future, and Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape.

Tom Wessels, Terrestrial Ecologist

by Tom Wessels

Click on the links below for Lesson Plans, Project Ideas, and Additional Resources.

Tom Wessels Disturbing the Forest Lesson Plan

Disturbing the Forest Directions

Disturbance Cards

What’s So Disturbing?

Grade Level: Upper Elementary / Science

TOM WESSELS and Biomimicry

Grade Level: Upper Elementary, Middle School, High School

Science, Design, Technology, English Language Arts, English Literacy

SURVIVAL OF THE … NICEST? YES Magazine. This article supports information contained in Track 04 Natural World as Model re: Social Darwinism. Learn more.

To discover strategies found in nature to maintain community, go to AskNature, facilitators/students will have to create an account. Click Biological Strategies / Click Maintain Community.

Into the Field / The Orion Society’s Nature Literacy Series: A guide to Locally Focused Teaching / Reading the Landscapes History / Essay and Lesson Plan / Wessels

RELATED BOOKS

Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England by Tom Wessels and Brain D. Cohen / High School level

Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels / High School level

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01. Intro to Recording

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02. Background

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03. Reading the Forested Landscape

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04. The Natural World as a Model

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05. Climate Change

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06. Meshing Passion and Competence

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