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Memory Code
A term coined by Lynne Kelley.
Hiking with Monsters
Session1 Fieldwork
- Intro fieldwork practice
Assignment: what place would you like to explore, how would you do it? Assignment 4th year: How do you share that exploration with others?
Session2 What lives here now.
- Intro Nederlands landscape.
- Set up whatsapp (or otherwise)
- Assignment: find a creature that interests you, how would you design a way to communicatie with it? Give it a name that is based on how you communicate with it.
Session3 Moth Snowstorm, what used to live here?
- Intro Moth Snowstorm, life at full volume. Shifting baselines. Montbiot animation.
- Assignment: What lived in your area before? What do you think is missing now? What qualities are missing?
- (image of Amsterdam as swamp)
Session4 Regeneration
- Regenerative practices
- What would your area need? How do you create habitat?
- Assignment: what natural cycles are missing, disrupted? How to reconnect. (Any size, tiny ant tunnel)
- Assignment 4th year: How can local people become active participants in that reconnection?
Session5 Rewilding
- What would your area need? Which organisms can regenerate it?
- (Coral, trees, wolves they all create opportunities for biodiversity to boom)
- Assignment: find three spots in your area where you see potential for rewilding.
Session6 Team work
- Based on previous lesson, work in groups on one organism. Who are the experts?
- assignment: Design a research team: what kinds of expertise are needed? (What is in it for them?)
- assignment 4th year: Design a research week. Location. Team. Question.
- (Don’t design the team sitting in your classroom. Do it on location!)
Session7 Animals as guides
- What qualities do animals need to thrive? (Elephants memory, bioindicators, animals/plants as messengers)
- Ecologist can see this area needs… wolves. (Trophic cascades)
- Assignment: (I give 5 animals and plants) in groups: what are the qualities of those animals?
- Assignment after class: translate those qualities into a human being a character.
- (In what ways does that help to think about the role of animals, in what ways does it hinder?)
Session8
- Qualities of animals and plants in the long now.
- Australia and aboriginals. Tending the wild.
- Assignment: memory walk
Session9
- Memory walk field test together.
- Assignment: design a multi generational knowledge system. How can our understanding and experience of the environment be shared across time?
- (Floppy disc vs. songline)
Session10
- Discuss the multigenerational knowledge systems.