Building Biodiversity: A Campus Resource for Teaching, Learning and Doing

The purpose of this project is to collaboratively identify, develop and create a web resource to share research findings across various academic disciplines and embed them in biodiversity stewardship on campus. Through eleven UBC project courses, 1230 UBC undergraduate students and 40 graduate students in the first two years will populate a web resource with campus-specific biodiversity research. Together, these discipline specific projects will establish a baseline overview of campus biodiversity. The web resource will encourage whole-systems thinking. It will be created using open-source tools and make visual knowledge of biodiversity on campus (i.e. land use, species mapping, green building construction, etc) broadly accessible. Additionally, the project will provide a unique learning opportunity for UBC students to conduct cross-disciplinary research that informs resource management, neighbourhood planning, plant, food and forest systems, community education and engagement. Following the first year, both process and resource will be reassessed to inform course project development, its uses within curriculum, and potential planning decisions on campus.

Liska Richer, Manager, Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Sustainability Program, Campus and Community Planning
Cynthia Girling, Professor, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Arts
Stephen Sheppard, Professor, Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry
Brent Skura, Associate Professor Emeritus, Global Resource Systems, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Jordi Honey-Roses, Assistant Professor, Community and Regional Planning
Sally Otto, Professor, Zoology, Faculty of Science / Director, Centre for Biodiversity Research
Rick Taylor, Professor, Zoology, Faculty of Science / Director, Beaty Biodiversity Museum
Jacqueline Chambers, Education and Outreach Manager, Beaty Biodiversity Museum
Darren Irwin, Professor, Zoology, Faculty of Science
Ildiko Szabo, Assistant Curator of Birds, Beaty Biodiversity Museum
Tara Moreau, Associate Director, Sustainability and Community Programs, UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Douglas Justice, Associate Director, Horticulture and Collections, UBC Botanical Garden
John Madden, Director, Sustainability and Engineering, Campus and Community Planning
Scot Hein, Urban Designer, Campus and Community Planning
Jeff Nulty, Municipal Landscape Architect, Building Operations