Landscape Ecology- an outstanding course!

Posted at: 11:03:08 31/03/2015 - By: Admin AEP - Read: 562 

If I have a word to describe about the Landscape Ecology in spring school, it will be Outstanding!

It is an honor to participate in such an interesting course like that. Our first subject is Landscape Ecology, I really had no idea what to expect from Landscape Ecology before taking the first lecture. At first, we start with lecture format and a couple minutes to explore University of Greifswad. We were impressed by the teaching passion of Dr. Tiemo Timmermann from Germany who are really well taught and also funny. I have never had a lecturer who is from Europe before.

A practical class with Dr. Tiemo Timmerman 

Back to lectures, the thing about lectures is that they can get a little bit boring at times. Thankfully, Landscape Ecology is an exception. This course really changed my mind, I have realized how amazingly and eye opening a lecture can be. In spite of the exorbitant amount of academic knowledge we have for class, I really felt convenient when listening to Dr. Tiemo’s lectures.

To start the lecture, Dr. Tiemo gave us an questionnaire including some basic terms, few questions about the subject and an evaluation table. And what I have come to realize is that Dr.Tiemo really make this subject magical and entertaining. Yes, it did. We silently concentrated in each word the professor spoke since our listening skill is still limited. On the other hand, we saw every single experience in what our professor did. Also he gave us some teamwork activities to discuss the core question of lectures. I can say he has mastered the art of lecture.

To give an example: Last week, professor Tiemo gave us a question about nature conservation “What do you think of the practice of dehorning rhinos to protect them from poaches?”. We have discussed and debated together with lots of intelligent, creative ideas and also many arguments. I believe that each of us has equipped our own ideas in Rhinos case.

Last but not least, we really enjoyed the field trip along with Dr.Tiemo and some environmental experts. We took a bus to Coc Lake on last Saturday morning, it was raining day but the rain cannot bother us anyway. That is our first approach to reality problems, we were taken to a small forest and rice field in household, we first observed the trees, lakes and predict how it was affected. We identified the soil, the landscape and climate types by the presences. Standing under the rain, we totally ignored the weather to pay attention to the energetic of Professor Tiemo’s lecture. That may be the most special that I have ever had.

Dr. Tiemo Timmerman in the field trip with AEP students to study landscape ecology in Thai Nguyen

I had never thought a short time subject could be so effective but Professor Tiemo proved me wrong. It will not be hard to sit through future lectures when I hold a strong belief through this course. People may say short time course is just like a seminar but it is beyond that.

Pham Viet Hung

AEP K45 student