What aspects of ecology are critical for students to understand yet very hard to teach? Are there developmental stages in students’ learning that limit their comprehension of ecological ideas? What skills in synthesis and statistical analysis do today’s and tomorrow’s graduate students need, and how do we teach these? Faculty, a major textbook author, and ecology and education researchers will address these questions and draw a broad picture of special challenges for teaching and learning ecology. They will also demonstrate how they approach these questions from their different training, interests, and perspectives.