Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Shared place and space: a comparison of two interdisciplinary graduate programs

  • Published:
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Interdisciplinary training has an important role to play in environmental research, but what aspects of interdisciplinary training are most helpful for graduate students as they seek to define themselves as interdisciplinary environmental scholars? In this paper, we compare two environmentally related NSF IGERT programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that were similar in their research focus but very different in their approach to training. One program required shared coursework, while the other required research in a shared geographical area in Yunnan, China. Our results suggest that the formal structure of interdisciplinary training programs may be less important than providing students with opportunities to interact with people from other disciplines, both intellectually and in practice. However, differences between the programs did impact participants’ approach to interdisciplinarity. Our findings also highlight the importance of professional training to ensure that all trainees are able to take advantage of interdisciplinary opportunities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. As part of its required coursework, the CHANGE IGERT had a class called “Local and Regional Approaches to Sustainability and Vulnerability” that emphasized the need for environmental researchers to recognize the inherently political, historical, and personal nature of place in their work. The class featured readings from environmental sociology, the political ecology branch of geography, and other critical literatures. Neither this seminar nor the China IGERT, however, took advantage of the more recent and critical research on place-based education (e.g., see Greenwood 2013; Tuck and McKenzie 2014), which brings similar insights about the conceptualization of place to the educational process itself.

  2. While NW Yunnan is large and trainees could choose to work anywhere in NW Yunnan, most students were primarily focused on areas around one major city or at least used the city as their physical base. However, despite the size and richness of issues in NW Yunnan, two students found that their research interests and needs required them to work outside of this area and so exceptions were made for them: one ecology student worked in southern Yunnan at a research station and one political science student studied issues at a national level that did not coincide with issues necessarily occurring in NW Yunnan.

References

  • Abt Associates Inc. (2006) Evaluation of the initial impacts of the national science foundation’s integrative graduate education and research traineeship program: final report. National Science Foundation

  • Allendorf TD, Brandt JS, Yang JM (2014) Local perceptions of Tibetan village sacred forests in northwest Yunnan. Biol Conserv 169:303–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bilek A, McCord JAA, Plachinski S, Starke JA, Radloff G (2012) German biogas experience and lessons for Wisconsin. BioCycle 52(12):48

    Google Scholar 

  • Bracken LJ, Oughton EA (2006) ‘What do you mean?’ The importance of language in developing interdisciplinary research. Trans Inst Br Geogr 31:371–382

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brandt JS, Haynes MA, Kuemmerle T, Fang ZD, Waller DM, Radeloff VC (2013) Regime shift on the roof of the world: Alpine meadows converting to shrublands in the southern Himalayas. Biol Conserv 158:116–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer GD (1999) The challenges of interdisciplinarity. Policy Sci 32:327–337

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark SG, Steen-Adams MM, Pfirman S, Wallace RL (2011) Professional development of interdisciplinary environmental scholars. J Environ Stud Sci 1(2):99–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eigenbrode SD et al (2007) Employing philosophical dialogue in collaborative science. Bioscience 57:55–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foertsch J (2011) Outcomes of two IGERT programs at the UW-Madison: the CHANGE program and the biodiversity in Southwest China IGERT. Internal Evaluation Report

  • Graybill JK, Dooling S, Shandas V, Withey J, Greve A, Simon GL (2006) A rough guide to interdisciplinarity: graduate student perspectives. Bioscience 56:757–763

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood D (2013) A critical theory of place-conscious education. In: Stevenson RB, Brody M, Dillon J, Wals EJW (eds) International handbook of research on environmental education. Routledge, pp. 93–100

  • Hackett E, Rhoten D (2009) The snowbird charrette: integrative interdisciplinary collaboration in environmental research design. Minerva 47:407–440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haynes MA, Kung K-JS, Brandt JS, Yang YP, Waller DM (2014) Accelerated climate change and its potential impact on yak herding livelihoods in the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Clim Chang 123(2):147–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinzig A (2001) Bridging disciplinary divides to address environmental and intellectual challenges. Ecosystems 4:709–715

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller TR, Baird T, Littlefield C, Kofinas G, Chapin III FS, Redman C (2008) Epistemological pluralism: reorganizing interdisciplinary research. Ecol Soc 13(2):46

  • Mitchell RB, Weiler CS (2011) Developing next-generation climate change scholars: the DISCCRS experience. J Environ Stud Sci 1(1):54–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morse WC, Nielsen-Pincus M, Force J, Wulfhorst J (2007) Bridges and barriers to developing and conducting interdisciplinary graduate-student team research. Ecol Soc 12(2):8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moselmi J, Capps K, Johnson M, Maul J, McIntyre P, Melvin A, Vadas T, Vallano D, Watkins J, Weiss M (2009) Training tomorrow’s environmental problem solvers: an integrative approach to graduate education. Bioscience 59(6):514–521

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Academy of Sciences (2005) Facilitating interdisciplinary research. National Academies, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson ER, Marsh RA, Bovard BN, Randrianarimanana HLL, Ravaloharimanitra M, Ratsimbazafy JH, King T (2012) Arboreal camera trapping for critically endangered greater bamboo lemur Prolemur simus. Oryx 16(4):593–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olson ER, Marsh RA, Bovard BN, Randrianarimanana HLL, Ravaloharimanitra M, Ratsimbazafy JH, King T (2013) Habitat preferences of the critically endangered greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus) and densities of one of its primary food sources, Madagascar giant bamboo (Cathariostachys madagascariensis), in sites with different degrees of anthropogenic and natural disturbance. Int J Primatol 34:486–499

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orr DW (1992) Ecological literacy: education and the transition to a postmodern world. SUNY

  • Patterson M, Williams D (1998) Paradigms and problems: the practice of social science in natural resource management. Soc Nat Resour 11:279–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, Burch WR Jr, Grove JM (1999) Interdisciplinary research: maintaining the constructive impulse in a culture of criticism. Ecosystems 2:302–307

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Polasky S, Carpenter SR, Folke C, Keeler B (2011) Decision-making under great uncertainty: environmental management in an era of global change. Trends Ecol Evol 26(8):398–403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Redman CL, Grove JM, Kuby LH (2004) Integrating social science into the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network: social dimensions of ecological change and ecological dimensions of social change. Ecosystems 7(2):161–171

  • Rhoten D, O’Connor E, Hackett E (2009) The act of collaborative creation and the art of integrative creativity: originality, disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. Thesis Eleven 96:83–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson BE, Baumgartner J (2011) Cultivating a demand for clean cookstoves. Science 334:1636–1637

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt AH, Robbins AST, Combs JK, Freeburg A, Jesperson RG, Rogers HS, Sheldon KS, Wheat E (2012) A new model for training graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary, interorganizational, and international research. Bioscience 62(3):296–304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith GA (2002) Place-based education. Phi Delta Kappan 83(8):584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sobel D (2004) Place-based education: connecting classroom and community. Nature and Listening 4

  • Tuck E, McKenzie M (2014) Place in research: theory, methodology, and methods. Routledge

  • Van Den Hoek J, Baumgartner J, Doucet-Beer E, Hildebrandt T, Robinson BE, Zinda JA (2012) Understanding the challenges and rewards of social-ecological research in China. Soc Nat Resour 25:1324–1329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu J, Wilkes A (2004) Biodiversity impact analysis in northwest Yunnan, southwest China. Biodivers Conserv 13(5):959–983

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NSF grants DGE-0549369 “Training Program on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development in Southwest China” and DGE-0549407 “Vulnerability and Sustainability in Coupled Human-Natural Systems: An Integrative Traineeship in Sustainability and the Global Environment.” We thank all the trainees and faculty who participated in both IGERT programs and provided us with the rich and rewarding experiences that inspired these reflections, Dr. Julie Foertsch for conducting and summarizing the evaluation that was the basis for this manuscript, and three reviewers for their engaging and insightful comments as well as their generous understanding of IGERT programs. The authors take full responsibility for the analysis and conclusions in this paper. Finally, we express our appreciation to the late Dr. Josh Posner of the China IGERT.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Dr., Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Teri D. Allendorf

  2. Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 122 Science Hall, 550 N. Park St., Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Robert B. Beattie

  3. Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Carmela C. Diosana

Authors
  1. Teri D. Allendorf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert B. Beattie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Carmela C. Diosana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Teri D. Allendorf.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Allendorf, T.D., Beattie, R.B. & Diosana, C.C. Shared place and space: a comparison of two interdisciplinary graduate programs. J Environ Stud Sci 7, 324–335 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-016-0392-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-016-0392-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation