ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates the analogy between ecological units and the nested hierarchy of knowledge units in order to raise fundamental questions for research on modes of practice. In the chapter, however, even though there is a burgeoning field of ecological design, the focus is on analogies to the science of ecology. It introduces the term academic praxome in 2014 in a brief article on how the complexity of course designs cannot possibly result in only the few handfuls of high impact practices being currently touted in academic circles. Genetics seems anything but simple, with its complex underpinning of physics, chemistry, and biochemistry. Yet as the burgeoning field of evolutionary developmental biology shows, all the scales larger than genetics rely on it in ways that supersede its complexity. In his concept of circular reaction, Jean Piaget recognized the fundamental role of sensorimotor connections.
