Efficient Sustainability Instruction: A Discussion of ACCEPTs, a Multi-University Collaboration to Offer Online Courses in Horticulture and Sustainability

As a result of a partnership between Oklahoma State University, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, and the University of Arkansas, numerous horticulture courses are being offered to the member institutions in the online setting. One of the new course offerings is Sustainable Land Management, taught in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Mississippi State University. The course focuses on ecological principles and their application in the built environment. The course begins with a discussion of basic ecological concepts: scale, flow of energy and matter, productivity, disturbance, succession, and diversity. The impact that landscape managers have on each of these community properties is discussed. While the focus of the course is not intended to be on landscape design, retrofitting existing landscapes to be more responsive to ecological health is addressed at every opportunity.