Reclaiming Broken Places: An Introduction Civic Ecology

Course Syllabus

Course Overview

Students in this free online course explore the people, places, and practices that link restoring nature with revitalizing neighborhoods. Civic ecology practices – such as community gardening, restoring streams, planting trees, and removing invasive species to restore native habitat -- are a means for communities to rebuild and express resilience in places impacted by war, natural disaster, poverty, crime, and environmental degradation. Civic ecology is the study of the individual, community, and environmental outcomes of these practices, and their roles in governance and ecosystems. Participants in this interdisciplinary course learn about contemporary thinking in social-ecological systems, resilience, and nature and human and community well-being. They also contribute to a local civic ecology practice through the course service learning project.

Throughout this course, you will:

· Explore the people, places, and practices that restore nature and revitalize neighborhoods, making a difference in ways big and small.

· Discuss and evaluate contemporary thinking in resilience, social-ecological systems, and the relationship between nature and human/community wellbeing.

· Grasp an understanding of how civil ecology enables those with limited resources to defy and cope with daily struggles, including after disaster and war.

· Acquire the knowledge and skill set to enact change in your own community.

· Participate in a civic ecology service learning project to turn classroom learning into real-life application.

This course is ideal for a learner who is intrigued by both social and environmental concerns, or simply has a desire to delve into an emerging 21st Century, cross-disciplinary subject area. You will complete this course with a keener awareness of social-ecological issues and concerns, as well as a greater knowledge of the practical steps required to rebuild and maintain community and nature in a world marked by inequality, conflict, and climate change.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of his course you will be able to:

1. Define civic ecology and civic ecology practices.

2. Describe a diverse range of civic ecology practices, stewards, and places.

3. Identify the commonalities among civic ecology practices, including how they emerge and their components, interactions with larger systems, and policy implications.

4. Apply the conservation ethic and civic engagement foundations of civic ecology in your everyday life.

5. Observe, participate in, develop plans for, and/or initiate local civic ecology practices in your community.

6. Create a multi-media “story” of a civic ecology practice of your choosing.

7. Form networks with other course participants interested in continuing to explore civic ecology.

Instructors

Marianne E. Krasny, Instructor

Marianne E. Krasny is Professor in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University and Director of the Civic Ecology Lab and EECapacity. Her scholarship connects environmental learning and social-ecological systems resilience in urban and other settings. She holds a bachelors degree from Cornell University and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Washington. She draws inspiration from civic ecology stewards creating beauty in broken places, and seeks to expand opportunities for others to join and benefit from civic ecology practices.

Keith G. Tidball, Co-instructor

Keith G. Tidball is Senior Extension Associate in the Department of Natural Resources where he serves as Associate Director of the Civic Ecology Lab and Program Leader for the Nature & Human Security Program. He is also the New York State Coordinator for the Extension Disaster Education Network. Dr. Tidball's research focuses on the dynamics of natural resource management in disasters and war.

Alex Kudryavtsev, Co-instructor and Community Group Leader

Alex Kudryavtsev is the lead editor on an upcoming textbook, Urban Environmental Education Review, to be published by Cornell University Press in Spring, 2017. He is also an online course instructor and researcher in the Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab. His PhD research (Cornell University, 2013) focused on sense of place and urban environmental education in the Bronx. Alex joins us from Tomsk Siberia and is looking forward to supporting our 40 community group leaders

Yue Li, Co-Instructor

Yue Li is a PhD candidate in the Civic Ecology Lab at Cornell University. Through her research and outreach, she seeks to understand how networking among environmental educators in online learning communities fosters innovation in education practice. Yue taught Introduction to Civic Ecology for Chinese students in spring 2016. She looks forward to helping learners apply civic ecology principles to practice and learn about implications of civic ecology for sustainability.

Community Group Leaders

Community group leaders will help participants coming different interests and languages understand the course content and engage in the course service learning project. For a list of community groups and leaders, see https://cornellonline.wordpress.com/groups/ (Students are welcome to join one or more community groups.)

Textbook

Many of the readings will be from Civic Ecology: Adaptation and Transformation from the Ground Up, by Marianne E Krasny and Keith G Tidball and published by MIT Press. These and all other assigned readings can be accessed for free on the course platform. If you would like to read the entire book, or to have a copy of your own, MIT Press has generously offered to make it available at a 30% discount to those who sign up for the course. Go to http://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262527170 and enter the discount code MCEM30 to order the book.

Course Facebook Group

Post to our Civic Ecology MOOC Facebook Group about your own stewardship activities and civic ecology related news items in your city or country. Learn about civic ecology practices from around the world, engage in discussions of civic ecology ideas, and offer support to your fellow students. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1790404347913178/

Course Schedule

The course has 12 modules. Each Tuesday at noon New York time (GST +4) from 6 September — 11 October, we will be rolling out the week’s course materials as well as materials for the following week (in case you want to get ahead). All course materials will remain up until 15 November, at which point the course will close and we will no longer be accepting assignments. We recommend that you keep up with the materials posted each week, but if you get behind, you have until November 15th to complete the course.

Follow this schedule to keep up on the work.

Weeks and modules:

Week 1 (Sept 6th)

—Civic Ecology: What and Why?

—Civic Ecology Principles

Week 2 (Sept 13th)

—Broken Places

—Love of Life, Love of Place

Week 3 (Sept 20th)

—Learning

—Creating Community, Creating Connections

Week 4 (Sept 27th)

—Social-Ecological Memories

—Ecosystem Services

Week 5 (Oct 4th):

—Health and Well-Being

—Governance

Week 6 (Oct 11th):

—Resilience

Week 7 (Oct 18th):

—Policy

But don’t panic if you get behind. You still have four weeks to turn in assignments before course closes on November 15^th.

The Ten Civic Ecology Principles	Brief Name for Principle
Emergence: Where and Why do civic ecology practices happen?
Civic ecology practices emerge in broken places.	Broken places
Because of their love for life and love for the places they have lost, civic ecology stewards defy, reclaim and re-create these broken places.	Biophilia/Topophilia
Bricolage: Piecing the practice together
In re-creating place, civic ecology practices re-create community.	Learning
Civic ecology stewards draw on social-ecological memories to re-create places and communities.	Community
Civic ecology practices produce ecosystem services.	Memories
Civic ecology practices foster well-being.	Ecosystem services
Civic ecology practices provide opportunities for learning.	Health
Zooming Out: A systems perspective
Civic ecology practices start out as local innovations and expand to encompass multiple partnerships.	Governance
Civic ecology practices are embedded in cycles of chaos and renewal, which in turn are nested in social-ecological systems.	Resilience
Policy Makers: Understanding and enabling
Policy makers have a role to play in growing civic ecology practices.	Policy

Service Learning Project

The course service learning project enables you to apply what you learn to a real practice, and to share knowledge about civic ecology practices around the globe. Whether you are able to visit or volunteer with a practice in person, or explore a practice online, your service learning project will help the practice by sharing its story more broadly. Complete guidelines for the service learning project are available on the edX course site. Students will use the online platform Storify for their final projects; alternative arrangements will be made for students in China and other countries where Storify is blocked

To browse some of last year’s students’ projects edited as an ebook, see https://civeco.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/krasny_snyder_mooc_stories_2016.pdf

(Students in countries where Storify is blocked will be accommodated.)

Here are some example stories that our 2015 teaching assistant Samar Deen created.

Friends of the Ithaca City Cemetery https://storify.com/CivicEcology/the-friends-of-ithaca-city-cemetery

Soweto Mountain of Hope https://storify.com/SamarDeen/what-is-civic-ecology

Please visit our Civic Ecology MOOC 2016 Facebook Group to learn about additional practices as they are https://www.facebook.com/groups/1790404347913178/

Course Assignments

The course will use multiple assessment tools to determine whether you earn a certificate.

Module Assignments. In each module, you will be assigned lectures, videos, articles, and readings from the Civic Ecology textbook and you will be assigned at least one of the following assessment types:

(1) Multiple choice questions,

(2) True/ False questions,

(3) Posting comments on the discussion board,

(4) Answering word clouds, polls, and surveys.

Service Learning Project. A Service Learning Project applying the civic ecology principles to a civic ecology practice.

Course Certificates

Four types of PDF course certificates are available. We do not issue grades.

· Verified certificate (paid). Issued by edX to students who complete 75% of the assignments PLUS the final project. For the $49 fee, edX verifies that you are in fact the person completing the assignments. Some people may need this for their work or studies.

· Achievement certificate (free). Issued by Cornell University to students who complete 75% of the assignments.

· Expert certificate (free). Issued by Cornell University to students who complete 75% of the assignments PLUS the final project.

· Community Leader certificate (free). Issued by Cornell University to individuals who lead community groups throughout the course.

To make the course a success for all:

· Contribute your ideas and reflections to the course discussions. The discussion board, Facebook group, and community groups offer unique opportunities to share your learning with, and to learn from, participants across the globe. To make the course a success for all, it is critical that you carefully reflect on the lectures and readings, and that you respond thoughtfully and with kindness to your fellow participants’ posts. Please try to respond to at least one fellow student discussion post each time you go on a discussion board.

· Follow the edX Honor Code, available at https://www.edx.org/honor

· If possible, do the service learning project. Visit a civic ecology practice in person or virtually, and create your multi-media story of the practice and post it to the Civic Ecology Storify site. We provide detailed instructions for how to do this service learning project.

Visit us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/1790404347913178/