A contribution to the 14th Biennial Conference on University of Education in Natural Resources, hosted in March 2022 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources and College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Mark Chynoweth, Utah State University. Content is the property of the authors under the Creative Commons agreement.
Interdisciplinary field courses
Experiential learning and field courses are a critical part of undergraduate education in natural resources. These experiences can help students explore new interests and develop critical skills in the profession. Our "Rivers in the American West" course is a 7-week interdisciplinary summer course that covers a wide variety of topics in natural resource management as well as literary and historical accounts of western rivers. A required 5-day wilderness river rafting trip is the cornerstone of the course, where students learn basic outdoor skills, aquatic sampling techniques, and creative nature writing. Students apply course material during our field experience and produce a portfolio of written, oral, and digital products. Our course is in its third year and we hope that sharing our experiences will demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary field courses and that fellow instructors might be able to apply some of our ideas to their own courses.