Creating spaces for interdisciplinary exchange in higher education: A case study

The conference ‘Wildlife and Society: Challenges for a Shared Future’, held in March 2013 at Canterbury Christ Church University, aimed to allow staff and students from a range of disciplines, together with practitioners, to meet and engage in discussion of wildlife and society interactions as a lens for a deep approach to teaching sustainability. The conference brought together experiences in formal and informal curriculum development and the use of diverse pedagogies to explore biodiversity issues. Presentations by speakers from the arts and media, literature and film, ecology and wildlife conservation, environmental education, primary education, anthropology, geography and religious studies were followed by an extended plenary discussion on embedding biodiversity values into teaching practice. Although interdisciplinary cooperation may be notoriously challenging, due to different disciplinary approaches and paradigms, it is essential in addressing real-world problems that do not fit comfortably within the confines of any single discipline. In this paper, we will present qualitative data from discussions at the conference itself and also data from a subsequent survey of participants in order to explore (i) experiences and perspectives on interdisciplinarity in teaching sustainability through biodiversity conservation issues and (ii) the potential impact of the conference itself on teaching practice.