ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTING AS A CURRICULAR MODEL FOR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

For more than a decade, we have used a vertically integrated set of problem-solving courses as the core of our environmental studies major. These courses employ a pedagogical framework based on the business model of an environmental consulting firm. Every semester we recruit a real client with a problem, and we devote the entire course to analyzing the client’s problem and suggesting solutions. This is not a component of another course, and there is no textbook. The course begins with the client delivering a Request for Proposal to the students. Students take a month to learn the requisite background and literature and then present a Scope of Work in oral and written formats to the client. Upon client approval, students spend the rest of the semester implementing the analysis. As a final exam, students present their findings and make recommendations, again orally and in writing. The instructor serves as the project manager: the boss who doesn’t know the answers but knows how to ask the right questions and give the right advice. The ultimate objective of the course is to teach students how to work in interdisciplinary teams to analyze complex problems. Because learning this skill takes repeated practice, our curriculum requires each student to take three problem-solving courses between the freshman and senior years. The final problem-solving course is the capstone to the major. The major also allows individual students to specialize in a discipline of their choice (e.g., geology, biology, sociology, political science, or any other major or minor available on campus). We aim for this expertise to be used in group work within the upper-level problem-solving courses – reinforcing the value of interdisciplinary problem solving. Juniors and seniors take the course at the same time so that we have ample peer mentoring. Clients have come from all levels of government agencies (federal, state, local), commercial businesses, non-profit organizations and private citizens. Example problems have focused on surface water (e.g., TMDLs) and groundwater quality, endangered species, Chesapeake Bay conservation and coastal erosion. Co-benefits of the pedagogy are that students provide genuine service to the community while gaining invaluable professional contacts and the College’s academic program is highlighted to a broad audience.