Collaborative Environmental Science Courses: Bridging between Undergraduate Research into Energy Issues in Malaysia and the United States

Abstract

With support from the EnviroLab Asia initiative at the Claremont Colleges, I redeveloped my Environmental Chemistry course for undergraduates to focus on environmental issues in Asia. I collaborated with a colleague from the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) who was teaching a similar course for master’s-level students in Bangi, Malaysia. Our students worked on projects together comparing different aspects of renewable energy in the two countries. At the end of the semester, my students traveled to UKM for a symposium with my colleague’s students and continued working on their research projects to turn them into publishable papers. The Claremont Colleges students greatly benefited from both the academic and cultural learning that occurred during our travel. I am currently developing a network of faculty at universities in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies who have their students work on data-gathering and/or analysis projects that can be useful for policymaking by the APEC Energy Working Group.