Reinventing The Wheel: Teaching Restoration Ecology Without the Ecology

Restoration ecology is ‘the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed’ (Clewell et al., 2005). Restoration can range from returning the system to its ‘natural’ state through to restoring some ecological functionality to a system (Hobbs and Cramer, 2008). The University of Western Australia offers an undergraduate degree in Restoration Ecology. As part of the degree first year undergraduate students must complete the unit ‘Introduction to Restoration Ecology’. This unit aims to introduce students to the general concepts of ecological restoration.