On Wednesday the sun was shining once again and we had interesting lectures with lots of discussion, which many of us had been missing.

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Early morning Denis traveled to the Viikki campus by bike, which was provided to him by the course coordinator Saska Lohi. It was a great opportunity to enjoy cycling in Helsinki (which is one of the best bike-friendly capitals in the world) and to be an environmentally responsible student (Kiitos Saska!).

The lovely weather continued (the days when the temperature reaches above 25 degrees are counted as ”hellepäivä” or ”a day with a hot and sunny weather” in Finland, this year we’ve only had a handful of days like this so far!).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBcen0EoYmQ

(https://youtu.be/wBcen0EoYmQ)

 Day 4 (10^th August 2015) of the Helsinki Summer School, Viikki campus “Management of sustainable Forest land scape” started on time. We were glad we had had the field trip the week before because now that we had to get into “substance”, it was nice to have in the back of our minds more knowledge of the Finnish landscape as well as of our class-mates personal “landscapes” (countries of origin, of residence, personalities, etc.)

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In the morning at around 07:00 to 08:00 we took breakfast at Hyytiälä forestry field station. During the breakfast we were sitting on the chair made of forest wood. This chair was specially design to give comfort and to make us relax in other to have good breakfast. This shows the contribution of ecosystem service to human well-being.

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The day commenced with an exciting programme of two presentations followed by two field trips. Our learning started with the first presentation on Forest Atmosphere interactions by Liisa Kulmala, Post-Doc in Forest- Atmosphere Interactions, UH (Forest). She discussed three important points:

1. How vegetation affects climate;
2. How climate affects productivity; and
3. How vegetation affects climate change.

The theoretical component was augmented by a practical visit to SMEAR (Station for Measuring Forest Ecosystem- Atmosphere Relations).

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The Managing Sustainable Forest Landscapes 2015 summer school has successfully commenced! Yay! The first day started (in spite of some belated confused students like us having trouble navigating their way around the campus) with an introductory lecture by Markku Kanninen, who told us about the general global trends in forestry and beyond. With the introduction to the course we got started with a couple of themes that will be developed throughout our class program.

Fobissie Kalame shared his experience of being a REDD+ negotiator- a job requiring the patience of a saint and a mind of a poker player.

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The opening day started with an introductory session. During the two hours we first spent together we got to know each others’ names, backgrounds and origins. What a diverse group! As Markku said during the session, WOW. Just wow. So much expertise from various fields packed into a single room. Certainly provides great opportunities for learning from each other! One of our goals in this course was to learn from each other, and not just from the lecturers. We feel very confident that this goal will be very well met!

Our group on the first day (missing a few students)

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This has been the last week before the course, and it’s been full of surprises! Lecturers have canceled and wanted to implement some changes to our almost-final schedule, so it has changed a bit, but nothing major. However, as the course coordinator, I feel like I’ve been solving a rubik’s cube for the whole week!

My office frustration has also grown quite a bit. It will be a GREAT change to get to go to class rooms and interactive events from a quiet, yet busy, office. Being an office monkey is certainly not my thing, at least not in these quantities. I’m especially looking forward to going to Hyytiälä, as it is quite a magical place! You can check their info pages if you want to know something about the place beforehand.

I hope that all the incoming students and visiting lecturers are also looking forward to the course. Next Tuesday it begins!

– Saska, the coordinator

As the title says, just a month left anymore before the course begins!

At this point the participants should be prepared to head to Helsinki, and hopefully they’ve also taken a look at the pre-exam questions and instructions. If not so, I highly suggest to check them out.

A lot of preparations have been made during the past few months, but there are still some arrangements to be made before the course begins. Some surprises are to come, that is for sure, but one just has to be prepared for anything. Lecturers might cancel, buses might break, computers might not work and other smaller inconveniences might, and will, come our way. But let’s hope for a smooth ride!

VITRI has been running a summer course for almost a decade now, so it is not a new experience for the more experienced VITRI staff. But for me this is the very first VITRI summer course, and I find myself being the coordinator! That has brought me some new responsibilities, and things to consider. I’ve contacted the lecturers and crafted the schedule, planned contents and tried to make the course follow a logical structure, in which every task and piece makes sense. It has been a fun experience, and the best part is that the course hasn’t even begun yet!

During the course we will use a few different pedagogical approaches, from lectures to field trips, group works to a public seminar. I hope that some of these alternative learning methods will be warmly welcomed. But fear not, we did not forget the traditional methods, and the participants will be sitting in lecture rooms, listening to our lecturers while the sun is shining outside. I also hope that learning takes place not only in the classroom and during the formal hours. Given the diverse backgrounds of the participants, there will certainly be a lot of opportunities to learn from each other! This can happen during lunch time or coffee breaks, free time activities etc. I am very much looking forward to interesting discussions during the course.

This is the office where the magic happens. Not as messy as you would think!

I hope that everyone’s waiting for this course to start as eagerly as I am. It’s been in the works for a while now, so seeing all the participants here and really seeing the course happening is going to be great!

// Saska