HP-Community Engaged Learning Project

Course goals

Content

Content of the course 
The Community Engaged Learning (CEL) project is an individual course, fully shaped by the student themselves, in which the student joins forces with a partner-organization or community from outside the university to develop a project around a societally relevant theme. In the CEL project an individual student or a small group of students contact a partner-organization or community outside the university that works on a societally relevant subject. This subject can be anything the student or group is interested in as long as it is linked to the domain of Geosciences. Together with the partner organization, the student or group develops a project in and with society that can be completed in the time of the course (210 hours per student including the time for proposal writing, the equivalent of 7.5 EC). The integration of societal engagement with academic study, equality in collaboration and reflection are central components in a CEL project. Therefore, the process and the experience itself are just as important as the delivered output! In doing a CEL project, the students will strengthen typical CEL competencies such as collaboration, connection of academic and professional perspectives, and reflection as a way of learning. But most of all the students will have the learning experience of actively working for and with others in society towards solutions for current challenges. 

Coordination
For Earth Sciences students: Dr.Elisabeth Addink (e.a.addink@uu.nl) 
For Human Geography and Spatial Planning students: Dr. Sara Brouwer (s.f.brouwer@uu.nl)
For Science & Innovation Management and Global Sustainability Sciences students: Dr. Heleen Mees (h.l.p.mees@uu.nl) and Dr. Gerbrand Koren (g.b.koren@uu.nl)

Process
Students start by looking for a supervisor and writing a proposal for the CEL project. The proposal of max 3 pages is submitted to the supervisor and the Honours coordinator. Before proceeding with the CEL project, the proposal must be signed by the supervisor, and then submitted to the Honours coordinator. The coordinator will discuss the proposal within the Geosciences Honours Board for final approval. 

More information can be found in the Student Guide for Honours profile courses.

The proposal should contain the following elements: 

• Name and number of the student; name of the supervisor;
• Title of the CEL project;
• Name and contact details of the societal partner;
• Intended learning outcomes both personal and content-related; for examples see the CEL project annex to student guide);
• End product(s);
• Overview of planned activities and distribution across the 210 hours;
• Time planning (incl. start and end estimated end date);
• Assessment criteria (see examples in CEL project annex to student guide).

Assessment
The grading is pass/fail based on the assessment criteria in the proposal. The supervisor is responsible for assessing the CEL project, and the Honours coordinator assesses the self-reflection report.