Students who engage in undergraduate research experiences acquire many benefits, including an understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed, recognition that knowledge can be complex and uncertain, and the habit of viewing knowledge critically. This paper describes a first-year two-course sequence that provides multidisciplinary…

Energy issues are becoming increasingly common subjects of instruction in undergraduate- and graduate-level classrooms across a variety of disciplines. The interdisciplinary character of energy studies provides geographers with a great opportunity to present different applied and theoretical approaches to help students conceptualize energy issues…

After describing our interdisciplinary humanities course and its history, we identify challenges these courses face and strategies for keeping them vigorous. We argue that course longevity depends on effective translation of vision and content into explicit goals bridging the gaps between faculty members and between faculty and students. (Contains…

In this essay, the authors argue that linked-course learning communities serve students at nonresidential metropolitan public universities by increasing their academic achievement, reducing their attrition, and engaging them in the project of public education. They use a winter 2004 research project to argue that linked courses create supportive…

As a substitute for what he sees as confusion of separate introductory courses in the different areas, the author proposes an interdisciplinary social science-humanities course organized around basic questions about man's individual and group needs and behaviors, group relationships and processes, value systems, and techniques for creating and…

This study attempted to: (1) identify and describe the nature of rationales, purposes and objectives, content and content organization, methods and materials, time and staff organization, general organization, and student populations of secondary school humanities programs in the United States; and (2) identify and describe the major common…

Author makes the case for starting in high school to improve the literacy and communication skills of students destined for scientific/technological careers. Detailed course program and extensive bibliography included. (PD)

This paper describes an innovative interdisciplinary course offered at the University of New Orleans (Louisiana) which involved community members as full-fledged partners with students and university faculty in service-learning-by-doing teams. Each student, with the assistance of a faculty member and a community partner, identified an opportunity…

An interdisciplinary physiology and pharmacology course presented by the Medical Interaction Laboratory at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine provides interaction among faculty, conserves faculty time and animal expense, and presents a coordinated laboratory experience. (BH)

In the fifties and early sixties, United States colleges and universities shied away from courses about communist insurgencies because of the repressive influence of McCarthyism. Vietnam was eliminated from classroom investigation, forcing students to take the issues to the streets. In an effort to expose and examine issues that arose from the…

Methods are presented for organizing and implementing consumer education for grades K-12. The handbook is based on the premise that consumer education should be integrated in the total curriculum. Consumer education is defined as the preparation of individuals in the skills, concepts, and understandings required for maximum use of and satisfaction…

In a period of expanding enrollments and shrinking budgets, this article criticizes the curriculum design of college English programs and current teaching practices. The author feels that fragmentation of the curriculum into highly specialized areas of study has prevented the development of new courses in interdisciplinary studies, film criticism,…

Instructors of courses in mass society, culture, and communication start out facing three types of difficulties: the historical orientation of learning, the parochialism of various disciplines, and negative intellectually elitist attitudes toward mass culture/media. Added to these problems is the fact that many instructors have little or no…