OCELOTS

Description

Overview of Module

This resource provides information on the implementation plan and teaching notes of a Gala module entitled “Restoring tropical forests” for use in an undergraduate Ecology course in the Faculty of Biology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. The module compares the outcomes of natural regeneration, applied nucleation, and plantation methods in a 15-year-long forest restoration experiment. The module also highlights the importance of socio-economic considerations in creating a successful restoration program. The implementation of the module was also complemented by three supplementary materials that focused on:

1) Restoration techniques developed by the government of Indonesia

2) Socio-Economy-Culture mapping

3) Various types of social forestry and their pivotal role in protecting and restoring the degraded forest in Indonesia

4) The role of a community-based agroforestry approach to conserving the forest and people’s livelihood

Summary of Implementation Plan and Teaching Notes

The biggest objectives of the implementation were not only to use the evidence-based research to complement the theoretical basis, but also to improve students’ ability to critically address, connect the dots, and understand the importance of a transdisciplinary approach. They also used systems thinking, and incorporated human-environment interactions in ecology. The module was implemented for almost 1.5 months over 7 meetings/classes. The implementation was divided into: 1) Pre-implementation; and 2) Implementation. The pre-implementation (4 meetings) included learning the ecological concepts and constructing a solution for ecological problems using several pedagogical approaches. These included lecture and discussion, mind map, role play and roundtable, gamification. The implementation (3 meetings) included flipped learning and discussion, group and class discussion, and mind map. I assessed the output and outcome of the implementation using quizzes for flipped learning, a collaboration rubric for discussion, peer assessment and mind map rubrics for the Mind Map, and an exam for evaluating the ability to critically connect the module objectives and its relevancy to Indonesia. Feedback from students was also collected to evaluate the implementation plan. In general, the students more actively engaged with the class activities and generally improved their ability to connect the dots and use a holistic approach to see problems.

Support was provided by: A grant from the United States National Science Foundation (DBI-RCN-UBE 2120141).

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