Achievement

Students developed a robust understanding of the nitrogen cycle that crosses disciplinary boundaries through their participation in the Nitrogen Cycling in the Earth's System NSPIRE IGERT course. This course involved approximately 10 faculty who team taught the course, which included six IGERT trainees and six other graduate students. One key feature that contributed to the success of the course was that most or all of the ten faculty were present during most of the course and each faculty presented the role of nitrogen in their disciplinary area over the course of the course. The IGERT student who is researching interdisciplinary learning tracked student understanding of the nitrogen cycle over the duration of the course and found that the student mental models of the nitrogen cycle were more complete and correct and reflective of an interdisciplinary understanding.