A Project-Based Model for Professional Environmental Experience

Exploring sustainability in the context of land reclamation: an exercise for environmental management trainees

“…All of these aptitudes are engaged by PBL field exercises such as the one described here and others that seek to develop the concept of 'the expanded classroom' for experiential education (McEwen et al, 2003;Katula and Threnhauser, 1999). The main issue here is whether or not it is better to try and create this broad vision within each individual learner or to teach that learner to become used to working in multidisciplinary teams that collectively deploy the broad sustainability understanding needed by environmental professionals (Meehan and Thomas, 2006). In fact, the two approaches are not discrete and these results show that this kind of individual work has the side-effect of encouraging team-working as a voluntary strategy.…”

“Choice may not necessarily be a good thing”: student attitudes to autonomy in interdisciplinary project-based learning in GEES disciplines

“…As previously noted, such issues usually defy disciplinary boundaries and, as such, projects in PjBL are often interdisciplinary (Frank & Barzilai, 2004;Jarmon, Traphagan, & Mayrath, 2008;Nation, 2008;Stauffacher et al, 2006) or work in collaboration with external organisations (Moehr, Protti, Lau, & Grimm, 2004;von Kotze & Cooper, 2000). Projects often conclude with the creation of a tangible end-product (Danford, 2006), which may incorporate a useful social function (Meehan & Thomas, 2006).The approach is practiced across a wide range of disciplines but is particularly prevalent in engineering (Harmer & Stokes, 2014), arguably because of the inherently interdisciplinary nature of the subject and its emphasis on the collaborative creation of a material end product (Otake et al, 2009).…”

“…In GEES disciplines approaches such as PBL (Beringer, 2007;Pawson et al, 2006) and IBL (Spronken-Smith & Kingham, 2009) are more commonly applied at undergraduate level, and as such the literature on PjBL in geography and related disciplines is relatively sparse (Nation, 2008). The few examples of PjBL within the GEES disciplines tend to focus on graduate students and/or to explore the interdisciplinary subject area of sustainability (Brundiers & Wiek, 2013;Kilinç, 2010;Meehan & Thomas, 2006;Nation, 2008). Projectbased learning eludes a clear and precise definition, but for the purposes of this study is defined as "an activity in which students develop an understanding of a topic or issue through some type of involvement in an actual (or simulated) real-life problem or issue and in which they have some degree of responsibility in designing their learning activities" (Morgan, 1983, p. 66).…”

Teaching Negotiation in the Context of Environmental Regulatory Enforcement: An Experiential Learning Approach

“…Meehan and Thomas (2006) used project-based learning to teach teamwork and interdisciplinary skills to students working on environmental development projects in Vietnam. Management educators have used case studies involving Canada's National Round Tables on Environment and Economy (Egri, 1999), protection of the northern spotted owl under the Endangered Species Act (Tucker & Tromley, 2002), regulation of solvent-contaminated cleaning rags under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Ramus, 2003), and environmental levies on beer under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization (Doh, 2004).…”

“…Adopting assumed roles, students simulate the penalty negotiation process between corporate representatives and federal and state environmental officials. The exercise can be adapted for high schools or professional development short courses, 1 and it is designed to provide an accessible, workplacerelated learning experience that helps students link academic theories with real-world knowledge (Meehan & Thomas, 2006).…”