Teaching undergraduate science courses through the lens of local community issues has the potential to help students connect more strongly to the sciences and to the communities near the university. In considering the construction of such courses, it is clear that even community issues that have strong science cores--water quality, viral and bacterial disease vectors--are inherently multidisciplinary, with scientific and technological considerations in balance with the economic and social factors that inform public policy. The fundamental challenge is, then, to develop ways to teach complex and multidisciplinary community issues within the context of science courses. Here, we report on a pilot study of a course structure designed to address this challenge. Cohorts of students from different disciplines were paired, and a strategy was developed that required the students to work together to teach one another about a community issue from their discipline's perspective. This model was applied to cohorts of chemistry and interior architecture students studying local brownfield redevelopment efforts.