This organized oral session will present successful strategies for enhancing undergraduate ecology teaching and learning, and for engaging students in ecological research, while providing mechanisms for developing long-term faculty research programs at small liberal arts colleges. This collection of presentations will illustrate how various ecological systems (watershed, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, butterflies, bean beetles, forest soil nutrient cycles) are used to engage students from diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds to learn ecology, appreciate nature, and develop into effective scientists, researchers, and published authors. The research systems are of great public concern, in terms of water and air pollution control, spread of diseases, and biodiversity conservation. The faculty will show how they use these systems to develop research programs that engage students over several years, building a database that will help future ecology classes understand how ecology research is done, while developing in these students the sense that they are building a legacy for future students through their collective work. The session will include ecologists from underrepresented groups, and highlight the experience of our presenters in engaging students from all ethnic backgrounds in learning ecology and conducting ecological research. The diversity of perspectives, regional locations, and research training of the presenters will illustrate the importance of small liberal arts colleges in mentoring future ecologists. The presentations on how undergraduate students can help create and use long-term or large-scale ecological research databases that give a well-defined picture of the research system, and on how to conduct multi-year experiments and publish results with students, are especially valuable to the development of ecology faculty at small liberal arts colleges. These faculty must spend more time on teaching duties than the time required for teaching and available for research at larger institutions. The papers’ discussion of innovative ways for faculty at teaching-oriented institutions to obtain funding for collaborative ecological research will also be valuable.