Spontaneous vegetation plays a significant role as a flexible survivor in extreme locations, especially in the backdrop of climate change. This unit explores different aspects of near-nature urban green spaces and its ecological significance.
Ecological succession is the dynamic process in which different plant communities alternate and create new ecosystems from raw soil. In this way, the landscape is constantly adapting to changing living conditions.
Against the backdrop of climate change, this natural dynamic represents an enormous potential for creating resilient and sustainable green spaces in our urban areas. Especially in urban wastelands and vacant lots, these processes can be experienced vividly when new forms of wilderness emerge in our immediate surroundings over the years. Spontaneous vegetation therefore plays a significant role as a flexible survivor in extreme locations. By exploring new aesthetic aspects of near-natural green spaces, they are addressed in addition to their ecological significance. This offers the possibility to create and maintain gardens and parks with lower use of resources (water, CO2, fossil fuels, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers) – an important challenge against the background of the preservation of biodiversity and adaptation to climate change.
The unit consists of three main parts:
Pupils will:
How does the landscape and its vegetation change over time?
How do ecosystems and their mix of botanical species respond to changes in climate factors?
How can the natural dynamics of vegetation development help make our gardens and parks more sustainable and climate resilient?
The unit explains the natural process by which vegetation adapts to changing climatic factors and provides an awareness of the potential and importance of this natural dynamic in the design and maintenance of urban green spaces.
Students learn about the basic principles of ecological succession and the role of vegetation in this process with the help of illustrative pictures of real landscapes.
With the help of illustrative diagrams, students learn to recognize and name the individual stages of ecological succession processes.
Students are asked to explore their surroundings to discover places conquered by spontaneous vegetation.
Students discover and identify the urban flora and its beauty in their immediate surroundings.
In this activity, students make their own seed bombs and are given the opportunity to make their own contribution to ecological succession and learn about local wildflowers in a creative way.
Students create an imaginary garden for a particular pollinating insect in a shoebox or other box and thus deal with the needs of the animals and the potential of spontaneous vegetation as food and habitat for wildlife and the preservation of biodiversity.