course-schedule

Ecological Restoration for Sustainability- project development (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Berta Martín-López, Victoria Temperton, Eva Völler

Termin:
wöchentlich | Freitag | 09:00 - 12:00 | 03.04.2023 - 07.07.2023 | C 11.117

Inhalt: We are currently losing pollinators, the bees and the flies and the butterflies - in our intensively managed landscapes and we need these organisms not least to feed ourselves. What can we do? Come and help us to restore, study and manage cultural landscapes. The latter provide us with food and resources whilst at the same time fostering biodiversity. It is also highly relevant for the topic of sustainably consumption, as it instills in participants the value of extensively managed landscapes that cannot provide us with huge bumper harvests abut are more resilient in face of climate change and provide much more habitat for many species to co-exist with us. One of the most important challenges of our time is how to combine biodiversity and food security, as our human population and our influence on the biophysical basis of our existence on earth increases. Many people are no longer connected to nature, and feel alienated from natural processes and places. Our activities are causing major biodiversity decline that in turn affects how our ecosystems that we depend on function and the services they provide for us humans. Although our influence is often negative, there are many ways in which we can have positive effects on biodiversity as well as ensuring food security is possible. What can we do? This course combines key aspects of biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems with the extensive management of cultural landscapes that provides us with food and resources whilst at the same time fostering biodiversity. In this planning seminar, we will plan specific sub-projects projects (in smaller groups) in detail. Our baseline project is a wonderful cultural landscape site near the village of Wendisch-Evern, where together with the a traditional orchard club (Streuobstwiesenverein) in November 2016 we restored an apple (and cherry and pear) orchard to a degraded horse paddock with low biodiversity and high nutrients in the soils (not good for biodiversity). Since the restoration action we have been doing two main things with different student cohorts: 1) Tracking how the plants and animals change at the site over time; we expect that the biodiversity of plants and insects and birds will increase over time, as we remove nutrients by mowing or grazing the site and this is good for promoting more plant and hence also animal species. 2) We are testing whether we can attract even more insects to the site but planting different grassland plants under each of the 15 apple trees; more tasty clover and co species (Klee) or forbs species that attract pollinators but are not quite as tasty as the clover and co species. This is the first time that anybody has studied this option scientifically in a traditional orchard, and if it works, it may be a nice option for attracting more pollinators to many other orchard sites. We are embedded in a cultural landscape including returning wolves and a shephard who does not want to have her sheep at our site - there are plenty of socio-ecological topics within the overall topic of the magic orchard and its transformation over time. GENERAL INFO: This course is one several different courses in the sustainability minor (sustainable consumption, sustainable governance, life cycles)- you need to choose one of the main courses and then you stick to this course over two years. This course in the summer semester, Module 3 and 4, takes place in the third semester of your minor. Building on the preceding modules introducing you to transdisciplinary research and projects, and to the key concepts and methods in ecological restoration, this semester you take part in two seminars that move into the more active sphere.

Leuphana Bachelor - Minor Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften - Komplexe Systeme Transformieren II: Kooperation mit der Praxis

Field Exercise 2 - Introduction to Ecology (for GESS) (Übung)

Dozent/in: Victoria Temperton, Emanuela W A Weidlich

Inhalt: This is a hands-on field exercise where you get to experience and get to know a species-rich meadow in the Elbe river area and learn how to identify plant species, as well as measure how species increase with the area you sample in a meadow. Thus, it is very much about learning by doing, and testing a key ecological theory in the field.

Our Present and Future Nature: An Analysis of the Book "Rambunctious Garden" by Emma Marris (FSL) (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Victoria Temperton

Termin:
wöchentlich | Montag | 14:15 - 15:45 | 03.04.2023 - 07.07.2023 | C 40.164

Inhalt: Emma Marris is one of the world's most innovative and perceptive environmental journalists, writing for foremost journals such as Nature, Wired, OnEarth and Conservation. Her 2011 book "Rambunctious Garden" is at the forefront of current conservation and restoration debate and thought about our present and future nature - to what extent do we need management of nature and what role does pristine nature play in our current Anthropocene? She starts the book this way: "We have lost a lot of nature in the past three hundred years - in both senses of the word lost. We have lost nature in the sense that much nature has been destroyed: where there was a tree, there is house; where there was a creek, there is a pipe and a parking lot [..]. But we have also lost nature in another sense. We have misplaced it. We have hidden it from ourselves. Our mistake has been thinking that nature is something "out there", far away. […] This dream of pristine wilderness haunts us. It blinds us." What kind of nature can we envisage and can we create for ourselves and for other organisms that we share this planet with? Come along and have your eyes opened to very new possibilities that are a hybrid of wilderness and management. We can have more nature than before, it just will not be the same as in the past. Key topics in the ten chapters in the book are: 1) Weeding the Jungle 2) The Yellowstone Model 3) The Forest Primeval 4) Radical Rewilding 5) Assisted Migration 6) Learning to Love Exotic Species 7) Novel Ecosystems 8) Designer Ecosystems 9) Conservation Everywhere 10) A menu of new goals. This course will cover all of these partly controversial topics and embed in current debate and discourse within the scientific and conservation/restoration community.

Restoration of Biodiversity in Urban Settings - the Leuphana Campus (Übung)

Dozent/in: Manuel Pacheco Romero, Victoria Temperton

Termin:
wöchentlich | Mittwoch | 08:15 - 11:45 | 03.04.2023 - 07.07.2023 | C 11.308

Inhalt: Urban areas are a key showplace for socio-ecological restoration. The Leuphana campus holds a great potential for biodiversity restoration and connecting people to nature more. The work in this course is very much project-focused with work in groups on specific aspects of the sustainability challenge of restoring biodiversity on campus. These challenges include balancing options for landscaping that include more native and biodiverse assemblages and cover different habitat types for plants and animals, as well as issues of openness and acceptance of different ways of landscaping and sharing space, and logistical and content issues such as lack of biodiversity knowledge and identification skills both in students and landscape gardeners. We will be navigating this complexity and the goal will be to interact with a number of different stakeholders involved in campus landscaping, among them the Leuphana Biodiversitäts AG, the Präsidium, gardeners and the other campus stakeholders. This semester the course has more teaching hours to allow for the integration of more content and learning of key approaches and methods as well as more time for analysis and conclusions. So far we have set up two reduced mowing sites on campus, and have restored a mini meadow, sowing a seed mixtures containing native plants that are attractive for flower visiting insects. This coming summer we hope to extend this set to a couple more sites. We have three group so far; vegetation and soils group, an insect group and an outreach group, that work together to integrate the results and communicate them to the wider community. This recurring seminar allows for long-term effects of social ecological restoration and biodiversity restoration to be assessed over time, as the campus dynamically changes with the activities. If we manage to assess the current condition of the campus and what soils and plants are already present and link this to how we would like different areas to develop this will set a solid foundation for mapping and tracking not only biodiversity changes on campus but also the functioning of ecosystems and the contributions they provide to people via nature. Currently in ecological restoration there is increasing interest in addressing such multi-functional outcomes, as well as biodiversity metrics. This course allows students to gain hands-on experiences in both urban restoration and the complexity and communication skills needed for effective biodiversity change. The successful implementation of restoration measures significantly depends on public acceptance and communication. Therefore we will also practice the communication of scientific perspectives with the public by doing an informative campaign about the biodiversity values on the Leuphana campus.

Grundlagen Nachhaltiger Entwicklung (Vorlesung)

Dozent/in: Roman Isaac, Berta Martín-López, Victoria Temperton

Termin:
wöchentlich | Mittwoch | 10:15 - 11:45 | 03.04.2023 - 26.04.2023 | C 40.501
Einzeltermin | Mi, 03.05.2023, 10:15 - Mi, 03.05.2023, 11:45 | W HS 2 | ROTES FELD wg. Veranstaltung Präsidium
wöchentlich | Mittwoch | 10:15 - 11:45 | 10.05.2023 - 07.07.2023 | C 40.501

Inhalt: The course provide lectures on a wide variety of sustainability topics that connect with the focus of each of the seminars, including biodiversity conservation and food security, sustainable consumption and governance for sustainability. Thus the course covers theory, approaches and tools relating to sustainability, including the ecological, social and governance realms. By the end of the course you will understand the basics for sustainability and will get basic knowledge of the projects conducted in the three seminars of this minor.

Leuphana Bachelor - Minor Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften - Grundlagen nachhaltiger Entwicklung

Ecological Restoration for Sustainability- Project Planning (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Milena Groß, Berta Martín-López, Victoria Temperton, Eva Völler

Termin:
wöchentlich | Freitag | 09:00 - 12:00 | 03.04.2023 - 07.07.2023 | C 11.307

Inhalt: IMPORTANT: our first introductory session is on the 7th April, Friday, at 11.00 am (not the normal 9,15). It will be either live or on zoom depending on how things develop over the next period. Please make sure you attend this introductory meeting as all other tasks will depend on information you gain in this meeting and we will talk about the pecha kucha examination format. Students are now in four different groups: 1) Abiotic butterflies 2) Understory pollinators 3) Outreach and connection to nature 4) Camera traps and wildlife In this semester you will develop your plans you started for the posters in the winter and sample the orchard with your goals in mind. We plan to add a moth trap that we would sample 3 times in the summer, which could be a nice addition to the camera trap and wildlife group. We are currently losing pollinators, the bees and the flies and the butterflies, in our intensively managed landscapes and we need theses organisms not least to feed ourselves. What can we do? Come and help us to restore, study and manage cultural landscapes that can provide us with both food and the diversity of life! One of the most important challenges of our time is how to combine biodiversity and food security, as our human population and our influence on the biophysical basis of our existence on earth increases. Many people are no longer connected to nature, and feel alienated from natural processes and places. Our activities are causing major biodiversity decline that in turn affects how our ecosystems that we depend on function and the services they provide for us humans. Although our influence is often negative, there are many ways in which we can have positive effects on biodiversity as well as ensuring food security is possible. What can we do? This course combines key aspects of biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems with the extensive management of cultural landscapes,. The latter provide us with food and resources whilst at the same time fostering biodiversity. It is also highly relevant for the topic of sustainable consumption, as it instills in participants the value of extensively managed landscapes that cannot provide us with huge bumper harvests but are more resilient in face of climate change and provide much more habitat for many species to co-exist with us. In this planning seminar, we will plan projects in detail. Our baseline project is a wonderful cultural landscape site near the village of Wendisch-Evern, where together with the a traditional orchard club (Streuobstwiesenverein) in November 2016 we restored an apple (and cherry and pear) orchard to a degraded horse paddock with low biodiversity and high nutrients in the soils (not good for biodiversity). Since the restoration action we have been doing two main things with different student cohorts: 1) tracking how the plants and animals change at the site over time; we expect that the biodiversity of plants and insects and birds will increase over time, as we remove nutrients by mowing or grazing the site and this is good for promoting more plant and hence also animal species. 2) We are testing whether we can attract even more insects to the site but planting different grassland plants under each of the 15 apple trees; more tasty clover and co species (Klee) or forbs species that attract pollinators but are not quite as tasty as the clover and co species. This is the first time that anybody has studied this option scientifically in a traditional orchard, and if it works, it may be a nice option for attracting more pollinators to many other orchard sites. We are embedded in a cultural landscape including returning wolves and a shephard who does not want to have her sheep at our site - there are plenty of socio-ecological topics within the overall topic of the magic orchard and its transformation over time. GENERAL INFO: This course is one several different courses in the sustainability minor (sustainable consumption, sustainable governance, life cycles)- you need to choose one of the main courses and then you stick to this course over two years. This course in the summer semester, Module 3 and 4, takes place in the third semester of your minor. Building on the preceding modules introducing you to transdisciplinary research and projects, and to the key concepts and methods in ecological restoration, this semester you take part in two seminars that move into the more active sphere.

Leuphana Bachelor - Minor Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften - Komplexe Systeme transformieren I: Interdisziplinäre Projektkonzipierung

Field Exercise 1 - Introduction to Ecology (for GESS) (Übung)

Dozent/in: Alina Twerski, Victoria Temperton, Emanuela W A Weidlich