UCDT Project Description

A team of professors from several schools and colleges at the University of Michigan created the Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed (UCDT) to foster institution-wide reform of undergraduate education. The UCDT built on the previous experiences derived from several years of interdisciplinary undergraduate lecture courses and laboratory modules in the field of Earth Science and global change.

A primary goal of the University's institution-wide reform in undergraduate education was to creatively effect dramatic improvements in the integration of faculty research expertise into undergraduate education, through curricular and extra-curricular means. The overall goal of the was to better understand institutional and systemic barriers to major expansion of interdisciplinary instruction and interdisciplinary curricula, to develop and test means of eliminating those barriers, and to develop templates and modules for interdisciplinary course development that can be exported to other areas. Key elements of the Testbed include: establishment of a university-wide introductory sequence in global change and a capstone course sequences generally; development of state-of-the-art instructional tools; exploration of enhanced incentives for interdisciplinary teaching-- including exploration of new teaching credit schemes; and development of a research-intensive learning experience, utilizing the University's Global Change Laboratory.

Two course constitute the Global Change curricula. Global Change I is an Earth Science course, focusing on the processes that drive global change. The course teaches students about the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, geosphere and biosphere. Global Change II looks at the role of human activities in shaping the natural world. The course provides a status report of the Earth's resources, and it examines how Earth systems have been modified in the relatively short timespan of human civilization.

Each semester in composed of 4 credit hours: 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of lab per week. Enrollment per term is approximately 80 students. Three Graduate student instructors help run the labs, develop course materials, and manage the web.