Teaching

Students are not customers of a university; they are its very soul.  Colin Macilwain, Nature 2011

Our teaching philosophy is shaped by the fact that understanding biodiversity on earth requires the integration of different biological disciplines. We want to understand how life emerged on earth as well as how organisms co-evolved and interact in natural ecosystems. Therefore, our teaching focusses on:

• how organisms interact at different spatial and temporal scales by both experimental and modelling approaches?
  
  
• which genes and compounds are involved in organismal interactions?
  
  
• how these molecular mechanisms drive the diversity of, for example, bacterial communities?
  
  
• how biodiversity affects the human wellbeing by providing ecosystem services?

teaching at hypothesis-driven modern science based on primary scientific literature. Moreover, it is essential to train independent thinking. This includes skill development in theory development, critical analysis, statistics, oral presentations, writing scientific reports, and communicating science at the science-society interface, for example with new media. These training goals also promote key skills to succeed in the job market.

In addition, we teach in several PhD courses and trainings provided by yDivExternal link and other graduate schools.