As part of the selection process for Terry talks 2008, each speaker was asked to make a wish, of which one was chosen for the campus to develop. The 2008 wish was from Integrated Science and Political Science student Geoff Costeloe and called UBC MIX to create interdisciplinary classroom partnerships, exposing students to new ideas and experiences.

UBC MIX develops cross-discipline and cross-faculty partnerships between courses already taught at UBC. It helps two faculty members make small adjustments to their class curricula that can bring together students from two courses. The partnership could involve one or two joint lectures, electronic ‘pen-pal’ communication between the classes, a mixed-group project, or anything else the faculty members think would be valuable to the students. The idea is to compliment the curricula of both classes by exploring the links between them, exposing the students to new ideas.

Celeste Leander, who teaches Science One Biology, and Carla Paterson from HIST 104 will be giving UBC MIX a shot in September. They will be using a variety of classroom activities that will draw on major themes from both classes. One activity is a project looking at trees around campus. Students from each class will be partnered together. They will have to find and identify trees in the UBC community, take a photo of themselves in front of it, then give a short presentation on the tree and it historical uses in B.C. aboriginal communities. It is a chance for students to learn from each other and put the skills and knowledge they take from class and put them into practice.

UBC MIX is currently looking for interested faculty members to form partnerships.
For more information visit: www.terry.ubc.ca/mix.

Originally published in UBC Reports – Source

Photo Credit: fboudville