Biology Professor Steve Murphree recently taught a class at the Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary. The class was titled The World of Invertebrates: Pollinators, Predators, Pests and Parasitoids. The topics discussed in the class included: Characteristics and life cycles of insects, Identification of insects, Overview of other arthropods, including spiders, isopods and mites, Methods of collecting and observing insects and other arthropods, and Ecological roles of arthropods.
Murphree is an entomologist and has been a professor of biology at Belmont University since 1991. He is a specialist on biting midges and maintains the international research website for this family of flies. He is also is a frequent contributor of articles about arthropods to the Tennessee Conservationist magazine. He has taught summer insect day camps for children, “Beetles, Bugs and Butterflies,” since 1992 and has visited many elementary school classrooms and nature centers in middle Tennessee. In 2004, he was named the Tennessee Environmental Education Association’s environmental educator of the year.
