Tools for Transformation

Funded Proposals

The Urban Ecology Initiative

College of Forest Resources

Urbanization is one of the largest-scale, most pervasive, and inevitable ecological processes on earth. However, lack of understanding of urban ecological processes is profound, in large part because they are determined by the complex interaction of human behavior and ecosystem processes. A new approach to solving problems is required to unravel the complexities of human behavior, ecosystem processes, and their interaction. We propose such an approach by combining research and education in a team-based, experiential approach to real-world problem solving.

We will develop an interdisciplinary approach to teaching designed to expose students to the very different ways in which social scientists, ecologists, policy makers, and natural resource managers define problems, gather information, and analyze issues. We begin with an interdisciplinary class in urban ecology and progress into a year-long capstone experience that mirrors successful approaches to teaching of team problem solving used at several business schools. "Tiger Teams" of Urban Ecology students will function as "consultants" to analyze urban environmental issues for clients (typically local and regional governmental, policy, and regulatory bodies). We will also create an Interdisciplinary Graduate conservatorium (Lab) intended to greatly improve communication and partnering between Urban Ecology students with diverse background, by housing up to fifteen of them in a common space designed to facilitate interdisciplinary work in a relaxed setting.

The Urban Ecology Initiative will be an ongoing example of integrated, interdisciplinary, graduate education. Graduates of our program will be driven to solve society's problems, and their first reaction to a problem will be to put an interdisciplinary team together to tackle it. They will shift away from thinking they can solve a problem alone, to thinking about how they can contribute to a meaningful solution by assembling, leading, and working with an interdisciplinary team.

The Urban Ecology Initiative will also produce substantial, empirical databases that will be used by students, faculty, and the community at large. We will make at least two specific products available on our web site: (1) a database of urban ecological issues, and (2) an interdisciplinary map of urban change in the Puget Sound.

Progress Report, May 2001

What do students get from our program that they don't from traditional grad programs? We decided to let our current students (those supported by tools) answer that! Here is their response:

Ten students from different places, with different interests, goals, skills, and most of all, opinions, were asked to come together for one year to address critical complex environmental/sociopolitical issues that cannot be tackled by traditional, single-disciplinary means. Asked by our faculty advisors to join and intrigued by the notion of an experimental class, we were all thrown together in a room and set with the task of tackling an urgent problem related to the impact of growth on the social and physical landscape of the Puget Sound region.

Five "clients" came to our class Fall quarter to present us with their issues. Although representing various federal, state and local resource agencies as well as private interests, their issues overlapped in their scope and complexity. We explored them all and collectively, as a faculty and student group, decided on one broad issue to address during the rest of the year. This approach to education is a radical departure from traditional single-disciplinary schooling. Our class is more student-driven than traditional classes and we all agree this is one of the highlights of the class. We asked for lectures we thought were relevant to our issues. We led class discussions regarding papers that we found interesting. We ran the weekly schedules and more than once told the faculty we felt they were going in the wrong direction, and of course, steered them back on track. It took a while to understand the dynamics of both the faculty group and our own group; consequently fall was a very difficult quarter. The faculty struggled with how much guidance, and in what direction, to give us in framing and analyzing our project. We frequently felt like we were in the dark, that we had more to do than we could possibly accomplish, that we were trying to make impossible decisions based on too little knowledge, or that we could never all agree -- just like real-life work situations. We set to work winter quarter with more focus on good communication, timely progress, organization, and consensus. While we didn't always succeed, we did greatly improve, and discovered we had succeeded at a number of things that we never even realized.

This experience is unlike the interaction we have within our own departments in a number of critical ways. Our research project, which is complex in scope, will eventually tie into a set of Master's and Ph.D. theses with a much broader focus than most. Our research project has demanded that we acquire a bewildering array of skills not traditionally required in our degree programs; a process made more achievable due to our diverse backgrounds. We acquired technical skills such as analyzing urban growth boundaries, digitizing orthophotos, writing a project proposal, and inter-calibrating Landsat images. We learned conceptual skills such as how to think about the convoluted social and economic drivers behind urban sprawl and we have gained these skills and knowledge as we have needed them. This is what we students have termed, "serendipitous acquisition of knowledge," and complements what our professors have coined "just in time" education. Both are practical and yet radically different from traditional learning within our disciplines.

In addition, we also developed personal relationships with students and faculty from other disciplines that we would not have otherwise had the chance to do. The urban planner, busy working towards his or her degree, might not have interacted professionally (or over margaritas) with the geographer or forest ecologist. Undergraduate students would not have had the opportunity to work as closely with so many different faculty, as well as working with graduate students as colleagues.

To effectively address the complexity of Urban Ecology issues, students in this program must be different. As a group we are biologists, historians, ecologists, seismologists, oceanographers, GIS specialists, botanists, project managers, teachers, writers, superfund cleanup specialists, wildlife scientists, conservationists, urban planners, geographers, linguists, and environmental activists, and are interested in innovatively addressing the complex emerging issues of ecosystems and urban sprawl. This program has presented us with tremendous opportunities to share our knowledge and learn new things. Above all, the most valuable opportunity has been the consistent and intense interaction among the select and diverse group of faculty and students within this Urban Ecology Program at the University of Washington.

Written by: Graduate students A. Cohen (Urban Design and Planning), D. Morawitz, (Geography), J. Newell (Geog.), L. Robinson (Urban Forestry Div., College of Forest Resources [CFR]), T. Rohila (Urban Wildlife Div., CFR), C.W. Srull, (Urban Design & Planning), R. Willis (Urban Design & Planning); Undergraduates C. Lander (Conserv. Wildland Res. Div., CFR), S. Sajovic (Int'l Studies; Community and Envt'l Planning), N. Troyer (E. Euro. Studies; Conserv. Wildland Res. Div., CFR).

Tools for Transformation Funded Proposals

The Provost's Office
provost@u.washington.edu
Modified: January 28, 2002