front cover of Farming in Nature's Image
Farming in Nature's Image
An Ecological Approach To Agriculture
Judith D. Soule and Jon K. Piper; Foreword by Wes Jackson
Island Press, 1992

˜Farming in Nature's Image provides, for the first time, a detailed look into the pioneering work of The Land Institute, the leading educational and research organization for sustainable agriculture.

The authors draw on case studies, hands-on experience, and research results to explain the applications of a new system of agriculture based on one unifying concept: that farms should mimic the ecosystems in which they exist. They present both theoretical and practical information, including:

  • a review of the environmental degradation resulting from current farming practices
  • a critical evaluation of the attempts to solve these problems
  • a detailed description of the ecosystem perspective and the proposed new agricultural system
  • a case study illustrating how this new system could be applied to temperate grain production using perennial seed crops and the prairie as a model
  • an examination of the potential savings in energy and water use, as well as potential contributions to ecological experiments and yield analysis work from The Land Institute.

Written in clear, non-technical language, this book will be of great interest to soil and agricultural scientists, academics, policymakers, environmentalists, and other concerned with finding long-range solutions to agricultural problems.

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Landscape Architecture Theory
An Ecological Approach
Michael D. Murphy
Island Press, 2016
For decades, landscape architecture was driven solely by artistic sensibilities. But in these times of global change, the opportunity to reshape the world comes with a responsibility to consider how it can be resilient, fostering health and vitality for humans and nature. Landscape Architecture Theory re-examines the fundamentals of the field, offering a new approach to landscape design.

Drawing on his extensive career in teaching and practice, Michael Murphy begins with an examination of influences on landscape architecture: social context, contemporary values, and the practicalities of working as a professional landscape architect. He then delves into systems and procedural theory, while making connections to ecosystem factors, human factors, utility, aesthetics, and the design process. He concludes by showing how a strong theoretical understanding can be applied to practical, every-day decision making and design work to create more holistic, sustainable, and creative landscapes.

Students will take away a foundational understanding of the underpinnings of landscape architecture theory, as well as how it can be applied to real-world designs; working professionals will find stimulating insights to infuse their projects with a greater sense of purpose.
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front cover of The Living Landscape, Second Edition
The Living Landscape, Second Edition
An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning
Frederick Steiner
Island Press, 2008
The Living Landscape is a manifesto, resource, and textbook for architects, landscape architects, environmental planners, students, and others involved in creating human communities. Since its first edition, published in 1990, it has taught its readers how to develop new built environments while conserving natural resources. No other book presents such a comprehensive approach to planning that is rooted in ecology and design. And no other book offers a similar step-by-step method for planning with an emphasis on sustainable development. This second edition of The Living Landscape offers Frederick Steiner’s design-oriented ecological methods to a new generation of students and professionals.

The Living Landscape offers

• a systematic, highly practical approach to landscape planning that maximizes ecological objectives, community service, and citizen participation
• more than 20 challenging case studies that demonstrate how problems were met and overcome, from rural America to large cities
• scores of checklists and step-by-step guides
• hands-on help with practical zoning, land use, and regulatory issues
• coverage of major advances in GIS technology and global sustainability standards
• more than 150 illustrations.

As Steiner emphasizes throughout this book, all of us have a responsibility to the Earth and to our fellow residents on this planet to plan with vision. We are merely visiting this planet, he notes; we should leave good impressions.

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Online World Language Instruction Training and Assessment
An Ecological Approach
Carmen King Ramírez
Georgetown University Press

A new approach to training and evaluating world languages online instructors

The rapid growth in online world language programs in the United States coupled with the widespread implementation of virtual teaching in response to COVID-19 have pushed the field to reconceive instruction. Virtual learning creates unique challenges for instructors, who need to ensure that their students have adequate interaction with their peers, their professor, and native speakers of the language. Even with a growing demand for online language courses, there are few tools that evaluate the training and assessment of online language instructors.

In Online World Language Instruction Training and Assessment, authors Carmen King Ramírez, Barbara A. Lafford, and James E. Wermers fill that gap, providing a critical pedagogical approach to computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education (CTE). By combining best CTE training and evaluation practices with assessment tools, the authors explain how teachers can integrate technology to build successful online programs. Their ecological, holistic approach addresses all facets of learning online—including pressing challenges of moving courses online, teacher training, developing core competencies and skills, instructions for assessment and self-evaluation, goal setting, and the normalization of critical CTE practices in an increasingly digital environment.

The authors propose new solutions to teacher training challenges, providing extensive rubrics and tools that can equitably assess online language instructor skills, the training they receive, the assessment process they undergo, and the instruments used for instructor assessment. A list of CALL and CTE resources (available on the Press’s website) further supports readers’ successful adaptation to an everchanging learning environment.

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front cover of The Reality of Illusion
The Reality of Illusion
An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory
Joseph D. Anderson
Southern Illinois University Press, 1998
Applying research findings from studies in visual perception, neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and anthropology, Joseph D. Anderson defines the complex interaction of motion pictures with the human mind and organizes the relationship between film and cognitive science. Anderson’s primary argument is that motion picture viewers mentally process the projected images and sounds of a movie according to the same perceptual rules used in response to visual and aural stimuli in the world outside the theater. To process everyday events in the world, the human mind is equipped with capacities developed through millions of years of evolution. In this context, Anderson builds a metatheory influenced by the writings of J. J. and Eleanor Gibson and employs it to explore motion picture comprehension as a subset of general human comprehension and perception, focusing his ecological approach to film on the analysis of cinema’s true substance: illusion.

Anderson investigates how viewers, with their mental capacities designed for survival, respond to particular aspects of filmic structure—continuity, diegesis, character development, and narrative—and examines the ways in which rules of visual and aural processing are recognized and exploited by filmmakers. He uses Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane to disassemble and redefine the contemporary concept of character identification; he addresses continuity in a shot-by-shot analysis of images from Casablanca; and he uses a wide range of research studies, such as Harry F. Harlow’s work with infant rhesus monkeys, to describe how motion pictures become a substitute or surrogate reality for an audience. By examining the human capacity for play and the inherent potential for illusion, Anderson considers the reasons viewers find movies so enthralling, so emotionally powerful, and so remarkably real.

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