User:Urbanature/course wizard/Course description

Lectures, laboratory exercises and field trips introduce basic knowledge of incorporating ecological factors in urban design and interaction of landscape science with the human environment.

The majority of humans now live in cities and that proportion is growing. As a result, the experience of the world and its ecological systems has changed significantly for most people, and the influence of human settlements on the natural environment has increased dramatically. Both of these consequences — the changed human experience of the world and our influence on it — depend on the design of cities at every scale. Design choices that are made at regional, municipal, local, and site scales affect the everyday experience for all species. The purpose of this course is to explore the ways in which the natural world interacts with cities, regions, and sites, and in turn how designs at these scales can incorporate the natural world into the urban environment in a way that maximizes environmental protection and enhances the human experience.

The course will concentrate on both the history and theory of urban ecological design and on the computing tools currently available to undertake quantitative (and usually spatial) analysis of the effects of alternative urban designs. In this sense, the course is situated both within landscape ecology and urban ecology and also in the applied disciplines of planning and architecture, and therefore is part of the newly identified domain of geodesign.

Students in this course will undertake exercises to develop understanding of the course content, explore new tools inspired by curiosity, develop writing skills, and share the results with the world. That is, at least in part, students will be doing work that will be posted immediately to the Internet, in the form of writing, re-writing, and editing well-referenced and well-researched entries on the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. For a topic of such importance and full of innovation, an undergraduate learning experience can also contribute to the public good!

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