Social constructs and cultural groupings inform how we perceive the world around us. This exercise allows students to begin to look at their own lenses and the social constructs that others use to interpret the world around them. Further investigation on how you approach the world gives students more understanding that there is a plurality in the interpretation of sustainability issues. It’s easiest to understand others once you understand yourself.

10 minutes to build a cultural identity iceberg.

15 minutes to pair share

3 minutes to amend your ice berg

group discussion.

When doing transdisciplinary research, making sure that stakeholders or communities most impacted by science and the resulting policies are involved from the onset is important to get it “right”. In this session, we talk explore transdisciplinary research, the tools used, best practices and the sticking points.

This is a quick introduction to the power of mixed methods and the role of qualitative and quantitative research in complex coupled natural and human systems. This session is best for early-stage graduate students.

Students learn about best practices for giving slide presentations.

Students read a few articles and talk about unconscious bias and its role in systems. We take unconscious bias tests and pair-share about how it can effect our work.

Students work on writing their mission statement. This is a statement that has a five-year horizon and aligns with values and ethics. We use this to build out the work that they are doing using flame mode.

Many professional settings have different unwritten rules for conduct or strategies for different settings. In academia, many of the settings are casual and less official, but there are still expected norms. In this session, we ask what are the rules of engagement for different settings such as professional meetings; managing letter writers and mentors; speaking with program heads at NSF; transitioning to a place of power; reviewing applications, papers, and proposals; and other professional settings. We use a panel of folks from different sectors and have an engaging conversation.

Organizations build boards to advise them on direction, connect them to the right individuals, help find funding opportunities, and champion their work. Why shouldn’t you have a board too? In this session, we work with your network map, identify areas where there are gaps, and identify individuals that you can put on your Board. These are mentors that can be your champion, and that you can check in with from time to time.

Writing strong letters of intent and brief proposals is key to shopping your ideas to different funders, communicators, and potential partners. In this workshop, we do just that.

In this workshop, we take a survey of different types of CVs and Resumes and we build our own. We evaluate different ways to tweak your resume for different job types in different sectors.  We use a panel of professionals to talk about the cultural norms for resumes and CVs for jobs in their fields. Students share their resumes and CVs to get feedback.