“I want to rouse enthusiasm”

It’s a Tuesday on the Irchel Campus. The break has just begun, but instead of flocking to the coffee machine, many students swarm forward to the instructor. They pepper him with questions or examine the plants spread out on the instructor’s desk. That doesn’t bother Florian Altermatt – quite the contrary, in fact: “The interest shown by students is a huge motivation to me,” he says. He recounts that a student told him that his course makes springtime greener for her because she now is able to identify more plants than before. “That’s exactly what I aim to achieve with my teaching. I want students to see their environment with new eyes and to apprehend the interconnections in their habitats.”

At the early age of twelve, Altermatt already knew that he wanted to become a biologist. Today he is a professor of aquatic ecology at the University of Zurich and heads a research group at UZH and Eawag. He is also the director of UZH’s Bachelor’s study program in biodiversity, which combines the latest concepts in ecology, evolutionary and behavioral biology, and environmental sciences. “For a long time, science became ever more narrowly specialized, but it started to broaden again around 20 years ago. That suits me to a tee,” Altermatt says.

He is delighted when political science or business administration students attend his lectures. “They take that knowledge with them into different areas of society later on, which is essential in view of the biodiversity crisis,” he says. Altermatt experiences students from subject areas outside the natural sciences as being very interested, which he says also helps them fill gaps in knowledge they may have in chemistry or physics.

The interdisciplinary conception of biodiversity science isn’t new, Altermatt says, even if the term didn’t come into being until later. “Natural scientists were already thinking interconnectedly by as early as the mid-19th century. Geology, chemistry, biology, human utilization – how all of that interacts fascinates me.” Given today’s challenges, Altermatt stresses that it’s vitally important to foster dialogue between different subjects because he says that’s the only way to tackle the complex problems. In Altermatt’s work preparing and arranging the study program, he benefited himself from dialogue with teaching staff from other subject areas because their perspectives sparked new ideas in his mind, the avid natural scientist says. “And the logistical challenges of a study program involving different university departments proved eminently resolvable,” he adds.

In the core study program, Altermatt teaches the main module Biodiversity and Habitats of Switzerland, which aims to impart a holistic understanding of organisms and their interactions with the environment, but also of how they are affected by humans. The module also includes acquiring extensive knowledge about species and habitats, an area in which Altermatt demands a lot from his students. Many of them gulp at first when they hear that they have to know 500 species for the exam for his basic course. “Species are the vocabulary of our subject. You simply have to know them in order to understand ecological relationships,” the biologist says.

He adds that many students are proud of themselves in the end when they pass. “I want to rouse enthusiasm that helps students to excel. I want to nurture their self-empowerment.” He recounts that one student told him that he knew the names of 500 Pokémon characters but could only identify a handful of trees by name. Now this student is happy that he is studying to broaden his knowledge about the spectrum of different species.

Being the recipient of the 2025 UZH Teaching Award visibly pleases Altermatt. “It’s one of the nicest accolades that I can imagine,” he says. Altermatt describes his teaching style as “classical” – lectures supplemented with field trips, tutorial videos and apps. Teaching, to him, is not a tedious duty but an integral part of his profession. “Good teaching and good research go hand in hand,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to do just one or the other.”

Before every lecture, he searches for plants and fetches specimens in order to bring nature into the auditorium. He’s not nervous, but laser-focused when teaching. “I leave every lecture happy, but afterwards feel the fatigue in the evening,” he says.

In addition to the lectures, Altermatt, together with his team, also organizes field courses and research internships. He wants students to be consciously aware of nature. One of the exercises he assigns them is to count birds, for example, along the Utoquai on Lake Zurich. “We always find an astonishing number of bird species,” Altermatt explains.

The one-week-long field courses, held in places like Elm in the canton of Glarus for example, serve an additional function besides imparting knowledge. “I want students to network with each other,” Altermatt says. “Contacts of this kind are important, also later in professional life.” And they produce memorable moments. To cite one, Altermatt says he once perched himself on a green alder to demonstrate the tree’s flexibility. Students talked about that for a long time afterwards, he recounts.

Altermatt defines teaching broadly to also include media relations work such as television interviews. “It’s all about conveying to people why biodiversity is so important,” he says.

So, his teaching also makes an earnest case for a kind of science that thinks in an interdisciplinary way, is societally impactful and opens a view of the big picture very much in the spirit of Alexander von Humboldt, whom Altermatt likes to quote. Teaching, to Altermatt, is like a journey of exploration, and he sees himself as an ardent expedition leader.