Niklas Janz – ecologist with many irons in the fire
Niklas Janz is a zooecologist and professor at the Department of Zoology. He is also director of studies at Zootis, program manager for the Master's program Ecology and Biodiversity and a valued teacher. The following interview with Niklas was conducted in October 2021.
How Niklas became an ecologist
The road to Zootis and ecology has been bumpy, says Niklas. When he started studying, the choice of subject was not a given at all, he started the Cultural Studies program but dropped out and worked for a while. It was only when, at the end of the 1980s, he had a newly awakened interest in the environment that he switched tracks and started on what was then the Naturvetarlinjen.
Niklas chose to major in geosciences, but his first year included a biology course with a focus on ecology and environmental issues, and then the penny dropped: it was biology that he was seriously interested in. Thus, the crooked road became straight: Niklas completed his undergraduate education with independent courses in biology, received his doctorate in zooecology in 1999 and, apart from a postdoc period in the USA, he has remained at Zootis ever since.
Studies of butterflies
Despite the great environmental commitment, Niklas' research has not focused on environmental problems. He believes that today's environmental issues are more about politics and economics than about biology and, moreover, we already have all the biological knowledge we need to act. Instead, his research has focused on ecological and evolutionary interactions between insects and their host plants.
Niklas' group mainly works with species within the Nymphalidae family, which includes the egg-laying comma butterfly in the picture. These butterflies vary greatly, both in terms of the number of host plants they use and what the host plants are. A central question that the group studies is what affects the degree of specialization of butterflies and how it is linked to evolutionary processes such as speciation.
Pedagogical interests
Niklas has been deputy head of BIG since June 2021. In that role, he has taken special responsibility for the educational work. His great interest in educational issues also takes many other forms. It was, for example, he who took the initiative to form the Biological Section's Pedagogical Council. The background was that Niklas - and many others - thought that there was a lack of lively pedagogical discussion within the subject of biology.
The proposal for an educational council was quickly heard and it was formed in the spring of 2020. Unfortunately, the council only had time to have a single physical meeting before the pandemic forced all activity online. However, digital seminars have certain advantages, says Niklas, and people are happy to continue with some online activities after the pandemic. But the council also wants to focus on teacher retreats. If you want to talk about what is genuinely difficult in the teaching role, for example exams, you need to travel away together so that you have plenty of time to discuss and learn from each other.
Field teaching and ICT
Niklas also runs, together with Cilla Kullberg and Kristoffer Hylander, a project, financed with the rector's quality funds, to develop field teaching at Tovetorp. The purpose is to lay a foundation for long-term studies of the environment around the station.
Niklas' interest in educational issues has led him to get involved in several ICT projects. For example, he participated in a pilot project when the new Athena learning platform was to be introduced at the university. The fact that he was so early on with Athena meant that he was able to quickly corona-adapt his teaching when the pandemic hit and also help others. He has also been involved in the introduction of Inspera, a digital examination platform that will be available throughout the university.
How does a good teacher work?
What makes a teacher a good teacher? Niklas believes that it is above all about taking the students seriously. Don't try to be "daddy" and take care of them, but treat them like adults, let them take their own responsibility and support them in their learning. This is the approach that lies behind the current layout of the basic course Ecology I 15 credits.
In this course, almost all compulsory elements have been removed; instead, a kind of points system has been introduced. This means that the students receive "reward" (points) for attendance, while the teacher does not have to be the police and "punish" absence. In addition, the final exam has been replaced by a continuous examination, which means that the students start reading the course literature already in the first week of the course.
Writer in his spare time
If you google Niklas Janz, you might think that the screen should be filled with links to his butterfly research, but you'd be wrong. Instead, it is his writing that is highlighted. So far, he has written two youth books, both of which have received good reviews.
Niklas himself has said that "my stories like to take place in the borderland between reality and unreality, because that is where I find the world most exciting". Now, when the time and energy are sufficient, he is working on several new books. We can only hope that his great pedagogical commitment will not dampen the desire to write, but rather give new inspiration!
Last updated: February 19, 2024
Source: Margareta Ohné