We made an agenda where we started with a talk, and then had some refreshments going into a workshop, to gauge as much interest as possible. The talk focused on how the Lancaster Environment Centre was founded, and how they focused on interdisciplinarity in different courses. Many issues in geosciences are what social scientists call “wicked problems”, meaning they need to be approached from multiple angles and sciences in order to get the full picture. There’s often a geo-element, along with a bio-, chemistry-, and socio-economic element.

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Andy introduced a module where he attempted to take this view at Lancaster University, called “Lakes, Rivers and Estuaries”, part of the third year Bachelor course. Through this course Andy began with the physical element, progressed through the biological and chemical element and then discussed the social and management element of each system. For example, in rivers the module would begin with mechanics, progress to sediments, identify how these processes connected with the vegetation in a river system, and then linked to how human environments are influential to and influenced by the bio-geo-chemistry occurring in the system. In outlining this approach, Andy introduced a simple way to introduce interdisciplinarity into geoscience teaching – and stressed that it is not necessary that the teacher knows everything about the human aspect for example. In this way, we can bring in the “and what difference are we making” side of our work front-and-centre with the students, by showing them just how our study connects to the “real world” in a holistic way.

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After the talk in Oslo Andy joined us for a small field trip to Ekebergskrenten with the first-year students. Where we had a great time looking at rocks, and the shape of the landscape in the Oslo-area.  

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On Tuesday (April 30th) Andy had his talk and workshop at UiO, and we had 16 participants in the talk, in addition to 13 people on zoom. For the workshop we had 7 participants. On Friday (May 3rd) in Bergen there was 6 participants in the talk, in addition to 3 people, and a digital delegation from Tromsø on zoom, 6 people stayed around for the workshop.

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Big thanks to Andy for inspiring us to do more interdisciplinary things in our teaching.

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On behalf of the organizing committee,

Kristian Bakken, Thomas Barnes, Mattias Lundmark (UiO)

Kenneth Mangersnes & Carly Faber (UiB & UiT)

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