The past 2 days of our trip, which just so happen to be the last 2 days, spent and at Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord. This park is built on the grounds of an industrial plant. This park was particularly interesting because it takes the approach of protection vs preservation. This means that instead of maintaining the old plant, it is left to decay and parts are not replaced. On the first day here we walked around the section of the park which is open. We partook in some of the park features and ate some blackberries from the blackberry bushes. The second day here we walked through an experimental garden that showed what kind of plant life could take in certain post-industrial conditions from the site. It was surprising to see just how much plant life was able to take back and hold in different soils, and other rubble and debris. However, there were still sections that plant life has yet to take back. After this, we went to a section of the park that isn’t developed yet. Here we worked in groups to measure the development and growth rate of the birch trees in a post-industrial site. To do this we used a method of core boring, which is taking a section of the core of the tree out. This shows the rings of the tree. The rings are an important feature in seeing how old a tree is and what the growing patterns of the tree are and were. The second day there was also the last day of classes for my study abroad trip here in Germany. I am going to miss Germany, but I am also excited to get back home to the United States.
Leave a Reply