Achievement

Our IGERT has been institutionalized as the graduate Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE). The certificate culminates in a capstone course that requires Trainees and Associates to produce useful, collaborative research for an outside or on-campus client. This year our 10 CHANGE scholars produced original analytical reports for three clients: the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources “Green Tier Legacy Communities” program (on local government sustainability criteria), the UW-Madison Office of Sustainability (on campus energy and material “metabolism”), and the non-profit “Open Source Seed Initiative” (examining the role of private “ownership” of genetic material on the work of plant breeders at land-grant colleges). Producing these reports gave Trainees and Associates direct experience with interdisciplinary environmental research on real-world problems, and their work is being used by each of these clients to further sustainability goals.