Recently, we have visited the Československá armáda (ČSA) brown coal quarry near Most. The quarry will become a National Nature Monument after the mine is closed. Ester Šůsová, our new Bachelor student, will focus on aquatic and wetland communities in the quarry in her thesis. The aim is to compare the species richness of smaller water pools formed spontaneously on the spoil hepas with large mine lakes such as Lake Most.
Ester will also create a virtual tour using 360° photographs, in which she will guide us not only through the area itself and the formation of valuable wetland communities, but also tthrough he overall potential of these habitats for nature conservation.
On Thursday, March 6th we had a tandem lecture in our partner school Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov. Lenka and Anička gave a talk that could be called "Everything you wanted to know about ecological restoration but were afraid to ask, in 90 minutes". In addition to the theoretical ecological principles, the students also learned about practical examples of the use of ecological restoration. It was a whirlwind, but according to the results of the final informal quiz, it seems that the students learned something after all.
The Restoration Ecology Working Group participated again in the conference Two Days with Didactics of Biology held on 6 and 7 February in Prague. This conference focuses on selected problems of biology education and practical suggestions for teaching science and biology. Lenka gave a talk entitled "What is restoration ecology and how to teach about it" in front of about 70 teachers form primary and secondary schools and other professionals involved in teaching of science and biology. In addition to a brief introduction to the topic of ecological restoration, she introduced the TEAM#UP teaching materials that are currently under developement and their format, including a short preview of an educational video and an illustrative virtual tour of a selected demonstration site of ecological restoration, the Nature Monument Pískovna u Dračice. These materials are currently being pilot tested at our partner VET school 
Do you want to know what happened in TEAM#UP in the second half of 2024? In the third edition of the 
Petra Janečková shared her knowledge about the vegetation on green roofs with the seminar participants on Thursday, January 9th. In an ongoing project, Petra had the opportunity to visit a variety of green roofs and get an overview of the rare and also invasive plant species occurring there.
The beginning of a new year is usually the best time for summarizing, evaluating and planning. And it is not different in our "spring" project. On January 8th, we met with other members of the project team to evaluate the past season, plan the upcoming season and agree on the further work on the project results. All of the challenges that arose during the past season have been solved, and therefore we await the comming season full of enthusiasm.
This week, in cooperation with the Insect Ecology Team of the Faculty of Science of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, we established experimental plots on the roof of a store in Nový Smíchov. The experiment aims to test whether the semi-parasitic plants can survive the extreme conditions of the roof environment and effectively suppress problematic grasses. The seeds, however, require stratification, i.e. exposition to cold to germinate. For this reason, it was necessary to establish the plots in the autumn to allow the seeds to go through the cold period. This experiment provides a unique opportunity to explore how semi-parasitic plant species can contribute to ecological stability and biodiversity in non-traditional habitats such as green roofs. The results of the experiment will have the potential to influence approaches to vegetation maintenance on rooftops to promote the sustainability and ecological functions of these spaces.
Back to school is a weekend event for secondary school teachers, which is regularly organized by the Faculty of Science USB. Our working group participated in the program also this year. This time, we included only a short advertisement for the 
