The term has gone by so quickly! On Tuesday, we will have our last lecture. We will also have some time to go over the final assignment requirements and give you a few minutes to discuss your final presentation preparations as a group.

Group presentations begin this Thursday, March 30 and continue on Tuesday, April 4 and Thursday, April 6. We ask that each of you attend class to listen to all of the presentations and arrive on time to avoid interrupting your classmates. As part of your participation, you will provide feedback to the members of another group; please be kind and considerate with your comments.

There are still a few questions about how the assignment works. We are asking for a single 12-slide presentation from each five-person group. The first two slides will give a general outline of your designs for your site, and the key concepts/themes/ideas that directed your decisions. These two slides should be prepared as a group. The next 10 slides will be made up of five sets of two slides representing each group member’s individual component. Please stick within these limits.

Much of your grade will be determined through your presentation, but we are also asking you to submit a one- to two-page individual summary after your presentation as well. This written component is designed to allow you to respond to feedback you received during the presentation and to provide additional description about what you included in your two individual slides.

We hope you are enjoying the project and are looking forward to seeing the final results!

This week’s lecture provided a history of urban forests and human well-being from a Western perspective. The weekly reading is a review article by Catharine Ward Thompson titled “Linking Landscape and Health: The recurring theme”

On Thursday, we will move our class to the BC Hydro decision theatre on the main floor of the CIRS building at 2321 West Mall. Directions to the room are here, and will also be given during Tuesday’s lecture. We will provide maps and trace paper. Please work within your groups to figure out who can bring pencils, markers, and anything else you think you might need to start working on your site together.

In addition to going over the grading rubric for the midterm and answering any related questions, lecture provided a brief introduction to the evidence regarding the role of the immune system in connecting urban forests to health.

Because the groups for the final project were newly formed last week, we’ve decided to postpone the design charrette until next Thursday, March 14. We’re hoping this will give you time to visit your site as a group first so you’ll have a solid foundation for the hands-on work that will take place in the charrette.

To support this team work, this week’s seminar offered hands-on instruction in how to represent trees as part of landscape designs, with a particular focus on doing so in the fast-paced environment of a charrette.