Achievement

Desired Goal: To expose trainees to interdisciplinary methodologies.

The IGERT course, "Energy, Ecology, and Community in Kansas," (taught by faculty in economics, geography, engineering, and anthropology) focused on analyzing Kansas farmers' decisions about growing food and/or fuel crops. The class combines hydrology, climate-modeling, ethnography, interviewing, and economic analysis of agricultural decision making in the face of climate change on the Great Plains. Trainees are using methodologies of disciplines not their own to find ways for these different disciplines to work in concert toward a similar research goal.