US-Southern Africa Cooperative Research: International Distance Learning on the Environment of Southern Africa

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

0115438 Macko This award supports a pilot program for a one-year international distance learning project in the environmental sciences to be conducted by the University of Virginia (UVA), the University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) in Mozambique, and the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) in South Africa. Each participating university will transmit some of the seminars via satellite broadcast (six from UVA and two each from UEM and WITS). Southern Africa has undergone and continues to experience large-scale land use/land cover changes largely brought about by human intervention with the environment. These changes can have environmental repercussions at the regional, continental, and global scales. Environmental education is essential for understanding these impacts on the global environment, and on the environment of the United States. This pilot project will explore the feasibility of exposing US and Southern African undergraduate and graduate students to leading edge technology and scientific content through a satellite-based seminar series in the environmental sciences. The seminar broadcasts will enable US students to have direct exposure to and interaction with regional expert lecturers and African students. The US and African students will also interact with each other through the internet, using the classroom internet tools provided by UVA. This project is expected to foster the transfer of knowledge and information on regional system level environmental problems by harnessing the existing broad spectrum of academic excellence within the partner universities. It is also expected to help create an internationally oriented generation of young environmental scientists in both the United States and Southern Africa. It is anticipated that up to 100 undergraduate and 20 graduate students from UVA will participate in these seminars, as well as approximately 40 students from Southern Africa. The project also includes visits by the US investigators to Southern Africa and visits by representatives from UEM and WITS to UVA for collaborative input to and evaluation of the program.