Abstract
This paper proposes an interdisciplinary, ecosystem focus as a way of preparing future environmental managers. The authors investigated the effectiveness of this approach in classroom teaching with college students from a variety of academic disciplines in two college environmental courses that were designed to focus on local ecosystems, wetlands and the Great Lakes. The interdisciplinary approach enabled students from various disciplines to interact cooperatively, learn to communicate with each other, and work through challenging environmental policy and science content. When student performance was compared with academic discipline and level in college, there was no advantage to being a particular college major in terms of the grades earned in the courses. In addition, post-course surveys indicated that students wanted more courses where their classmates came from a variety of disciplines, and that they enjoyed having at least two professors teach the course, one from public affairs and one from the natural sciences. This article outlines some teaching toots that were used effectively to help students explore an ecosystem view of environmental public affairs.
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