Field courses provide European diversity at low cost

Abstract

This article introduces the European field course programme in Environmental Management at London Metropolitan University. It shows how foreign field courses can provide student experience of European diversity at relatively low cost, at a time when finances have forced curtailment of many programmes elsewhere. The programme described allows students access to unfamiliar environments, utilizing the expertise of staff in host institutions.

Introduction

Within the disciplines that encompass environmental investigation, the specific value of field work experience has long been recognized (e.g. Bull & Church, 1995; Kent et al, 1997; Nairn et al, 2000. Fuller et al. 2003) and is invariably discovered anew by students participating for the first time and staff embarking on field-based tuition. Such field work in the tertiary sector has often been conducted overseas, primarily because specific environmental phenomena or communities that are the objects of the investigations do not occur in the UK, but an obvious secondary benefit has been the opportunities afforded to students to gain international experience. However, the extent of any field-based training has always been constrained by available resources. In the first renaissance in environmental awareness in the 1970s in the UK, one result of the increased interest in environmental study was the expansion of university field course programmes. Subsequently, the reductions in resources through the 1980s resulted in reducing opportunities. Field courses particularly in Geography, Environmental Science/Management and Biology thus expanded and then contracted both in number and distance to location. It could be argued that this has resulted in fewer students having the opportunity also to combine a field study experience with the stimulation afforded by working in foreign situations, as the inevitably more expensive field courses have increasingly been replaced by lower-cost courses run ‘at home’. A significant consequence has been that fewer students have access to even this minimal level of international contact, even though such contact should be one of the important opportunities available to tertiary level students, especially in the GEES disciplines.

Range of international experience available at London Metropolitan University

At London Metropolitan, we have been able to continue to provide and, even expand, our provision of field courses held abroad in spite of facing the same financial constraints as elsewhere. Our ability to offer levels of international experience to our students has therefore been maintained, partly by such field courses and partly through other means. Students can gain international experience through our Environmental Management degree course in the following ways:

1. Mixing with their peers, a significant proportion of whom are not UK nationals;

2. Mixing with exchange students from Germany, Spain or the USA;

3. Becoming an exchange student and spending a semester studying abroad;

4. Attending our second year field course, which is now always attended by students from Germany;

5. Attending our third year field course, which is always ‘international’.

Several of these options would be expected in any degree programme, but our European exchange programme has flourished to the extent that international field courses are held twice a year, essentially at little further expense to the departmental budget, by utilizing European funding via ERASMUS.

ERASMUS exchange programme

We set up a Bilateral Exchange agreement with the Fachochschule Eberswalde, Germany following meetings of key field work staff in London and Eberswalde in 1996 and 1997. This allowed for two students to travel each way per year to spend one semester of their second year in the host institution - since the programme’s inception we have hosted the full quota of two German students each year. However, our experience has been that few of our students speak German, so thus far few students have gone from the University of North London (now London Metropolitan) to Eberswalde, mirroring the national trend of incoming exchange students to the UK from Europe far outweighing those outgoing. Since the host institution essentially pays the fees of the guest students, a fees imbalance develops if the exchange is not more or less reciprocated. Eberswalde students invariably speak reasonable to excellent English, so communication between them and London Metropolitan students has always been good.

In addition, the exchange allows for two members of staff to travel to the alternative institution for programme development, teaching, and other collaborative work, per year and each way. We have used this facility to support our international field courses.

Within the last two years we have set up a similar arrangement with the university of Lleida, Spain, which already had such an arrangement with the Fachhochschule Eberswalde. Once there are at least three institutions from different EU member states involved in this way then it is possible to apply for ERASMUS Intensive Programme (IP) funding for financial help to set up an international course of at least ten days (the minimum course duration to qualify for IP funding).

International IP Field Courses

We have used the IP funding for an initial cycle of three years, enabling us to run a Year 3 field course attended by students from all three institutions, each acting as the host in turn, together with staff also from all institutions. The locations of our field venues mean that we run a field course each year either in Germany close to the river Odur (our ‘east European’ connection), in northern Spain (Mediterranean) or our own venue (the Gower peninsular, south Wales, considered the ‘Atlantic’ connection by our European colleagues). Two years in three, therefore, a Year 3 student has the opportunity to experience environments quite unlike those studied in the field at the home institution. For example, we are the only institution to offer coastal investigations. Of course, one year in three each institution hosts the field course, so home students that year do not have the opportunity to travel abroad. However, the advantages are that staff in each institution only have to organise the course once every three years, while the course expertise concerning local environments is provided by the home staff who are all thoroughly familiar with their own patch. Repeat visits abroad give opportunity for travelling staff to develop their own expertise in the overseas environments. We now have enough experience that we can advise staff or new institutions joining our IP arrangement about the finer points of a successful application, while we now have a common format that is followed each year, tailored to the particulars of the local environments.

Furthermore, the European financial contribution makes a considerable difference to the costs incurred by the student. We received 9.9K (Euros) (£5.9K) as the ERASMUS contribution when we last hosted the IP in 2001, for 30 students and 6 staff. Details of the funding allocated vary from year to year as do the details of expenditure, which also vary between the different institutions. However, to date the costs to our students for a ten day field course abroad have been little more than the return air fare, reduced further by a departmental contribution.

We have also enjoyed insight into the alternative working practices within our three institutions. For example, Spanish and German students are not required to produce any work for assessment. In contrast, we require our students to complete a full report, which is marked as assessment for the field course that is effectively an entire module. Students participate in the field course in September. While we have briefing sessions before the course, and a post-course debriefing, there are no other classes involved in the field course other than during the course itself. Thus, through the following semester there are no classes to attend that are associated with the field course. Therefore, although students need time to research and complete their report they gain a module without the commitment of 48 hours class time plus additional learning time, a valuable saving for final year students.

Institutions in Finland and Poland are joining our IP, so that the range of environments available for our field courses is expanding, as are opportunities for further student and staff exchange.

European diversity and consolidation

The normal venue for our annual Year 2 Environmental Management field course is located on Gower. We now always host staff and students from Eberswalde on this course at no cost to ourselves, the Germans meeting all their own costs. The extra administrative load involved is minimal. The German students usually travel by coach from Berlin, a cheap though exhausting means of travel, but their repeat visits are testimony to the value they place on the experience. They join our students on joint projects, always swap email addresses with our students, and friendships often develop. It is also very likely that some will meet again within six months on the international IP field course. Both groups of students therefore have ample opportunity to benefit from the perspectives of other European nationals — for example, our students are frequently amazed at the seriousness and effectiveness of waste management in Germany, while the Year 2 German students are often less accustomed to the relatively high level of independence we give them in the design and execution of their projects.

Conclusions and Recommendations

We evolved into our current situation through a series of steps over a period of three years. An IP could no doubt be set up more rapidly, but we found the longer period invaluable as we developed working relationships with our European partners. Necessary steps to set up any course as an IP can be discovered from an HE institution’s International Officer, essentially consisting of filling an ERASMUS Intensive Programme application form. Bilateral agreements are not necessarily essential, but facilitate and provide funding for staff and student exchange each way, extremely useful in the early stages of development. One route to initiating an IP field course could be:

1. Establish contact with staff/departments with similar requirements in other EU member states. At least three partners (i.e. located in departments in three separate EU countries) are required in order to be eligible for an ERASMUS IP;

2. Set up a bilateral agreement (an ERASMUS administrative arrangement) with each partner institution. Use the mobility provided to plan courses with counterparts in the other two European partner institutions;

3. Apply for an ERASMUS IP. The normal term agreed is 3 years, hosted by the same institution. We apply annually to change the host institution to the one acting as field course co-ordinator for that year.

European exchange programmes are easy and effective ways to enhance the student experience via field courses as well as the common exchange (study abroad) option. They can be cheap, while the increased diversity of the resulting student body temporarily yet intensively exposes students to perspectives and viewpoints perhaps not easily available otherwise. The IP programme can be utilized in field courses to take advantage of the local expertise of staff in their home territory, while students and staff have the opportunity to study at first hand environments that may be quite different from those studied in the field within their own country. There is much room within the expanded European Union for creative instigation of partnerships that can lead to programmes such as those described.

Notes

(NB: London Metropolitan University was formed on 1 August 2002 following the merger of the University of North London and London Guildhall University)