Overview of the curriculum.

To work effectively on interdisciplinary research projects, IGERT fellows must have an understanding of and appreciation for the variety of disciplines represented in this educational program. Thus, we have designed a multidisciplinary curriculum that includes two new interdisciplinary courses in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability, Spanish training, and the choice of a variety of courses within four core areas:

Social Sciences and Ethics, Economics, Biophysical Sciences, and Agriculture/Forestry.

These four categories were chosen to give students the breadth of knowledge that will be required in their interdisciplinary research programs. Students must have a basic understanding of the underlying principles and issues within each of these major fields in order to work effectively at addressing the complex problems at the interface of conservation biology, production agriculture/forestry, and sustainability.

In addition to the required multidisciplinary curriculum, each student will also take two to four additional disciplinary courses related to the dissertation project, as advised by his/her graduate committee. UI offers numerous disciplinary courses in the areas of emphasis of this project, from which the students could choose.

The majority of the coursework will be completed during the first year while the students are at the University of Idaho. To expand access to educational subjects, students also will be able to take graduate courses at CATIE during the time they are in Costa Rica.

IGERT courses.

The curriculum contains two new courses developed for the IGERT program. "Interdisciplinary Research in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability" is a three-credit course with the following objectives:

1) to identify broad research questions in biodiversity conservation and sustainability that can be tackled trough interdisciplinary research projects, 2) to develop interdisciplinary teamwork skills, 3) to develop interdisciplinary research projects, and 4) to increase the awareness of issues in biodiversity conservation and sustainability for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor region in Central America and the Y-2-Y corridor region in North America.

The course is taught jointly by faculty in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and College of Natural Resources (Nilsa Bosque-Pérez, Lisette Waits and Jo Ellen Force). The first part of the course consists of lectures by UI faculty and renowned guest speakers.

During the second part student form teams and collaboratively pursue one or more interdisciplinary objectives that address the theme of achieving biodiversity conservation and sustainable economic productivity in anthropogenically fragmented landscapes. Students also identify individual research objectives from within one of four major research areas:

Conservation Biology and Ecological Genetics, Agricultural and Forest Ecology, and Agroforestry, Soil and Watershed Sciences, and Sociology and Environmental Economics.

Students work together conducting literature searches for their dissertation research proposals, and make oral presentations to the class. Participating faculty guide students in the development of their project proposals. IGERT fellows take this course during their first semester in the program.

"Current Issues in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability" is a one-credit seminar class. In this course, students read a variety of current literature on biodiversity conservation, production agriculture/forestry, sustainability, economics, ethics, and social issues. The objectives of this course are:

1) to increase the understanding of current literature in these fields, 2) to develop critical analysis and review skills, and 3) to promote professional interdisciplinary discussions.

This course is co-taught by Nilsa Bosque-Pérez and participating IGERT faculty. IGERT fellows take this course every semester while they are on campus.