Clear the Mind of Pre-conceived Ideas and Get Your Hands Dirty! An Approach to Field-based Courses: The SLUSE-southern Africa Experience

Abstract

This paper explores an approach to problem-oriented, interdisciplinary field-based courses devised by university consortia in southern Africa and Denmark. The SLUSE (Sustainable Land Use and Natural Resource Management) model has been applied on six three-week field courses within southern Africa and trained over 200 students. Student groups composed of individuals from different academic disciplines that investigated problems specifically devised to integrate social and natural science approaches set the stage for an interdisciplinary approach. The field locations are in rural areas that have a legacy of marginalization, poverty and reliance on natural resources for at least part of their livelihoods thus allowing for environmental and natural resource issues to be investigated. Course evaluations show that students feel they gain invaluable exposure to the innovative field-based learning environment created by the SLUSE approach. The main benefit perceived by hosting local communities was an increase in their self-esteem and to harness the knowledge and experience gained from the courses to further enrich their own communities. On reflection, the students value the opportunity to work cross-culturally, and trying new techniques on ‘real’ issues. To many students the personal challenges they face adjusting to the demands of the field course are as important as the academic outputs.

Keywords:

• Field-based courses
• interdisciplinary
• problem-based
• group work
• southern Africa
• inter-institutional

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank SACUDE-SLUSE (DANIDA) for funding of the project entitled ‘Human Capacity in Natural Resource Management’ under which the field-based courses were conducted. The communities in which the field courses were based and associated stakeholders are also thanked for their participation. Furthermore, they would like to thank all students and staff that have participated in this experience and have made the project sustainable and continuing. Finally, the suggestions and comments of the reviewers are acknowledged—they have been insightful, questioned issues the authors may have taken for granted and resulted in an improved paper.

Notes

¹ SACUDE-SLUSE (Southern African Consortium of Universities on Development and the Environment—Sustainable Land Use and Natural Resource Management) was established through collaboration between the University of Durban-Westville, the University of Natal-Pietermaritzburg (merged in January 2004 to create the University of KwaZulu-Natal), the University of Botswana and the University of Swaziland.

² DUCED-SLUSE (The Danish University Consortium on Environment and Development—Sustainable Land Use and Natural Resource Management) includes The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, University of Copenhagen and Roskilde University.

³ Evaluation is a vital part of a process of course (re)design and the main purpose for the evaluations is not self-congratulatory, but to learn from mistakes for future courses. Many changes are implemented as a consequence of the meetings and written feedback.

⁴ The Southern students have tended to be far more vocal and outspoken at evaluation sessions, while their Northern counterparts were generally more ‘polite’ and unwilling to upset people, thus it took longer to ‘extract’ their true views.