The following was originally published in YFile on September 25, 2014.

Harvard University Professor Aaron Ellison and Elizabeth Farnsworth, a senior research ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society, widely regarded as the power couple of ecology, will be speaking at York University on Oct. 2.

Ellison will lecture about his experiences working and teaching in the Harvard Forest at Harvard University. The Harvard Forest is the University’s 1,500-hectare outdoor classroom and a living laboratory for ecological research. At 10:30am, he will deliver a talk titled, “Identifying, anticipating and intervening in ecological regime shifts”. The talk will take place in 306 Lumbers Building on the Keele Campus and is part of the Biology Department Research Talks. It is free and open to members of the York community.

Then at 2pm in 009 Accolade West, Ellison will deliver another lecture titled, “Short and long-term impacts of undergraduate research experiences at the Harvard Forest” to the members of the Faculty of Science Committee on Teaching and Learning.

Ellison is the Senior Research Fellow in Ecology at the Harvard Forest, and an Adjunct Research Professor in the departments of Biology and Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 1992, he received the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Faculty Fellow award for “demonstrated excellence and continued promise both in scientific and engineering research and in teaching future generations of students to extend and apply human knowledge.”

“Harvard Forest is a fantastic example of ecological research,” says York biology Professor Dawn Bazely, one of the organizers of the talks. “Aaron Ellison is not only one of the top ecology researchers in the world, but he’s also a leader in teaching undergraduates about science, through the National Science Foundation’s Undergraduate Research Experience program, which brings about 30 undergrads from across the USA to Harvard Forest to do research, each summer.”

In his role as a senior research fellow at the Harvard Forest, Ellison studies food web dynamics and community ecology of wetlands and forests, evolutionary ecology of carnivorous plants, the response of plants and ants to global climate change, and the application of Bayesian statistical inference to ecological research and environmental decision-making. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 scientific papers, dozens of book reviews and software reviews, and the books A Primer of Ecological Statistics (2004) and A Field Guide to the Ants of New England (2012). He is the editor-in-chief of Ecological Monographs and in 2012, was elected a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. At home in Roylaston, Massachusetts, a rural town of 1,000 people, Ellison is a member of the Conservation Commission.

At 7pm on Oct. 2, Farnsworth will deliver a public lecture titled, “Conserving the Rich Flora of Eastern North America”. The talk is co-sponsored by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability at York University, the Department of Biology and the North American Native Plant Society. Admission to this public lecture is free for university students who bring their identification, otherwise there is a $12 admission fee.

“Elizabeth Farnsworth is a multi-talented biologist, whose work with the New England Wildflower Society builds bridges between the public and researchers in conservation Biology,” says Bazely.

Farnsworth is Senior Research Ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society, and a biologist, educator, and scientific illustrator. She is also editor-in-chief of the botanical journal, Rhodora. At the society, she co-led the award-winning National Science Foundation-funded project, Go Botany, to develop an online guide to the regional flora for teaching botany. She previously coordinated planning for the conservation and management of over 100 species of rare plants. She has illustrated the Flora Novae Angliae, the Natural Communities of New Hampshire by the NH Natural Heritage Bureau, and three other books, and illustrated and co-wrote the A Field Guide to the Ants of New England (Yale University Press). She is co-author of the Connecticut River Boating Guide: Source to Sea and the Peterson Field Guide to the Ferns.

Farnsworth is a member of the graduate faculties of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Rhode Island, and has taught at Smith College, Hampshire College, and the Conway School of Landscape Design. She formerly served as ecologist with the Connecticut Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. She has conducted scientific research on many ecosystems throughout the world, focusing on restoration, conservation, plant physiology, mangroves, and climate change. She was awarded a Bullard Research Fellowship by Harvard University in 2005 and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1999. She has been a scientific consultant to the National Park Service, The Trustees of Reservations, US Forest Service, Massachusetts and Connecticut Natural Heritage Programs, United Nations and the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust.

The talks are well worthwhile attending, says Bazely. “Both Harvard Forest and the New England Wildflower Society have adopted a hugely interdisciplinary collaborative approach to research and engagement with multiple groups in society.”

The following was originally published in YFile on August 1, 2014.

What will an eco-village on the York University campus look like? That’s what students enrolled in the Design for Sustainability Workshop course in the Faculty of Environmental Studies were investigating.

The course was created by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) in 2009 to help explore the topic of sustainability and rethinking public spaces on campus. A part of this course analyzed the mapping of future development on campus and conducted design audits.

Arlene Gould explains concepts to her class

Course instructor, Arlene Gould, said the course is designed to “train and prepare the next generation of leaders.” Gould explained that the course participants demonstrated hard work and completed much research throughout it. The course is co-sponsored by the York University Development Corporation (YUDC) and Regenesis, an environmental and social justice organization on campus.

This year, the course and its participants focused on a co-housing design charrette and building a community eco-village at York University. Co-housing is a concept that originates from Denmark and pertains to communities and housing. Eco-villages are planned communities that foster social interaction. Equally important are eco-villages that are sustainable communities.

There were five student groups which examined various themes surrounding eco-villages. The groups’ respective topics of exploration included social model for co-housing, shared spaces, green technology, closing the loop (food and water education) and outreach.

Students engage in one of the breakout sessions

Participants had the opportunity to listen to guest lecturers and visit sustainable buildings around the Greater Toronto Area throughout this course. YUDC visited the classroom to inform the students about future development plans on campus and to discuss Lands for Learning. Anam Sultan, who spoke on behalf of YUDC, explained that Lands for Learning will provide a vision for potential opportunities that exist on the edge of campus. She notes that York University is looking for “balanced and well-designed planning.”

In the past, the Design for Sustainability Workshop explored the topics of green building strategies and sustainable housing models.

Various industry professionals and community members provided input and imparted their knowledge to the student groups to assist with their projects. During the breakout session, the Green Technology group shared ideas with Martin Liefhebber, an architect with Breathe Architects. Liefhebber provided the group with information regarding green technology and design.

Anam Sultan of YUDC talks about Lands for Learning

After the breakout session and interacting with the industry professionals and community members, the groups were able to present their research a second time, incorporating the new information they had gathered during the session. This provided a more realistic view of what an eco-village on York’s campus could look like.

One of the workshop participants, Adam, mentioned, “The course was very informative and a very good application of knowledge. [It] drew in people from the community of green development.”

Another participant, Sherlock, commented, "I see the benefits of the eco-village especially in this day and age. It’s a good change from the monotonous. It also creates a place for people that need a stable environment, while at the same time creating diversity.”

By Kurt Reid, MES student and communications assistant in the Faculty of Environmental Studies