Open grassy ecosystems in the tropics

Author: eleroux@bio.au.dk

Created: 2021-09-29 02:03am

Edited: 2021-12-08 01:21am

Keywords: tropical ecology, rural development, conservation, human security, ecosystem management, STREAM

Description:

This learning design forms part of a 10 ECTS MSc course in Tropical Ecology at the Department of Biology. The course provides the participants with ecological background on tropical ecosystems and how these are anthropogenically influenced either directly through over use or bad management or indirectly through impacts such as climate change. This particular unit provides the ecological background on open grassy ecosystems in the tropics, their natural drivers, past human impacts, and current and future threats to these ecosystems.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

Describe the ecological characteristics of open grassy systems and discuss the ecological drivers necessary for the persistence of open grassy systems
Explain how the major current and future threats potential threats to open grassy systems and explain how the loss of these systems will influence the livelihood of people in developing countries
Identify and analyze problems in relation to natural resource management in the tropics by constructing a problem tree and an objective tree.
Design project documents on natural resource management in tropical countries

	Resources		Tasks		Supports
	Out-of-class: session 1
	An influential publication on a development project suggested and implemented in tropical open grassy systems.	→	Read critically through a prescribed reading ↓
←	Lists of pro’s and con’s uploaded to the discussion form	←	List with short justification the pro’s and con’s of the development project according to the authors and according to own opinion ↓	←	Lists created by peers

	In-class: session 2
	Lecture slides	→	Lecture on open grassy ecosystems, their ecological drivers and current and future threats. ↓	←	In-class questions to lecturer
			In person student discussion among peers on the reading assignment in task 1, given the new information provided in the lecture ↓	←	Group discussions and peer interaction; Lecturer and TA present to join group discussions and answer questions.

	Out-of-class: session 3
	Links to external online discussion forums on the specific development project from their reading; Links to opinion pieces both praising and criticizing the development project from the reading; Links to follow-up publications in direct response to the development project	→	Fact-finding web search for more information on the development project provided in the reading assignment in task 1. Upload links to relevant material in the forum, comment on at least 1 of the ‘new links’ ↓	←	Brightspace forum discussion among students, and sharing of further resources uncovered; Lecturer and TA’s contribution to the student discussion online; Lecturer available online at dedicated times to have one-to-one or one-to-smaller-group discussions if required/requested
			Adjust the list of pro’s and con’s of the development project made in task 2 to reflect any changes in perspectives ↓

	In-class: session 4
			Redesign the development project from the reading, implementing your own understanding of the ecosystem ↓	←	Group work and discussion with peers
			In class presentation about the development project and the student’s own experience of a change in perspective over the past week	←	Group work and discussion with peers In class feedback from lecturer

Additional information

The course is aimed at anthropology students who need to understand the functioning of natural systems to ultimately be able to design a Development Project on natural resource management and human security, to be implemented in a tropical country (their final term paper). This learning activity is partly aimed at providing the ecological background information about these open grassy systems, but also to illustrate how carefully such development projects needs to be designed and how damaging such projects can be if it is implemented without ecological knowledge of how the natural system functions.

The activity extends over a two week period, with two out-of-class sessions and two in-class sessions (alternating). The students are asked to read a publication that positively describes the implementation of a development project in an open grassy system. The publication is chosen specifically to present a case study that will appear at first to the students to be beneficial and positive, but is in reality one that has been badly implemented with little understanding of the tropical system and thus ended up being a failed project.

In this activity, the students go through a step wise process where they are 1) asked to evaluate the development project from their reading; 2) receive the lecture that detail the functioning of open grassy ecosystems (within which the development project from their reading had been implemented); 3) discuss the development project with their peers in light of the new information from the lecture; 4) go on a fact-finding mission online; 5) are given the opportunity to re-evaluate their original evaluation (from step 1) and 6) are given the opportunity to re-design the development project in a way that is more cognizant of the ecosystem and its functioning.