We have been talking with colleagues at Umeå University to support student learning for sustainability. Dr. Jos Eussen has provided us with the opportunity to organise an international exchange activity for students at Umeå University and with students enrolled on a transdisciplinary course at Maastricht University. The event aims to provide a student-led learning space to approach local sustainability challenges with integrated problem-solving tools, through an international and interdisciplinary perspective. Students will work with sustainability challenges that influence a local area (Umeå, northern Sweden or Maastricht) and co-create a learning opportunity across the course of the exchange experience.
Our discussions with associate professors Heidi Burdett, Caroline Blomqvist, Åsa Berglund and Tom Korsman at the department of ecology and environmental science found avenues to apply the student exchange experience with multiple possibilities in undergraduate and master programs. The departments work with local challenges, such as marine mining, mining in indigenous areas, forestry and urban growth that provides a natural landing space for this exchange experience. This innovative approach at the department gave us great encouragement for this new adventure we are embarking on together.
We also found support for this student exchange experience at the geography department at Umeå University. This week we spoke with postdoctoral-fellow Pamela Bachmann-Varga and associate professor Marco Eimermann who work with sustainability challenges in tourism, migration, immigration and teaching through transformational learning activities. The opportunity to work with sustainability challenges with such rich and current issues in several different local areas will help provide different perspectives that can better understand the tools needed to apply integrated problem-solving approaches.
Thank you to everyone at the discussions, we greatly appreciate your cooperation in this international exchange opportunity. We welcome others to join this valuable international student exchange activity that can be applied across disciplines. Could your students benefit from interactions with engaged sustainability mindset students to inspire curiosity? If you are a student, would you like to join an event?
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