Through lecture, discussion and project exercises, this course will explore the relationships of ecological communities in diverse environments, the implications of landscape patterns, and how landscape scale affects ecosystem processes from rural to urban. Students will consider conservation and management issues at the landscape scale as part of a holistic approach to systems thinking. Key concepts of landscape and urban ecological systems will be examined through the application of concepts to students’ own scaled design proposals. Students will explore the opportunity for redefining our social relation to nature, and our role in doing so as designers, as a way to course correct climate change.