**4.3 Student feedback**

Both students responded to a set of open-ended questions developed by the Primary Investigator. These questions were designed to assess the pedagogical effectiveness of the URAP project and get a sense of how the project could be modified to better fulfill student goals and objectives.


#### **Table 3.**

*Selected correlations between survey question items.*

*A Multi-Disciplinary Undergraduate Pedagogical Experience Looking at Attitudes… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101248*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Solar installations (green points) and highways (red) in relation to desert tortoise habitats (pink).*

#### **Figure 3.** *Support for solar development by zip code.*

#### *4.3.1 Skills gained*

The student researchers were asked as to the skills they gained from this experience. Both students reported that they gained critical thinking skills, which facilitated their understanding of interdisciplinary thinking.

*"Since we did multiple methods of gathering information (reading academic papers, visiting solar sites, interviews, and surveys), I developed my critical thinking skills to become more interdisciplinary." – 2019–2020 URAP Student.*

In the spirit of science communication, many of the technical science fields attempt to use social science methods to broaden the reach of their research and get a better understanding of their audience. But oftentimes, surveys are undertaken without an understanding of proper methodology, which has been long standardized and vetted within the social sciences. Just like in the "hard" sciences, there are ways to design data collection to be less likely to gather poor quality data. Both students were rooted in the spatial and environmental sciences, and thus were initially less wellversed in social science research methods at the start of the project. They both stated that the methodologies they gained throughout the course of the project enabled them to better understand the social sciences, including surveys and interviews. Related, one student mentioned that the skill set acquired by applying for and presenting at conferences made them better able to communicate their research findings to a broad audience.

One additional skill that was reported by a student was the ability to interact with different types of stakeholders using different forms of communication (written, verbal, etc.). This was executed during the recruitment of interview participants and participatory mapping. The practices involved developing email requests, interview scripts, and ultimately facilitating interviews. These skill are undoubtedly important within the realm of science communication.

#### *4.3.2 Fieldwork*

As previously discussed, the first year of this project (2019–2020) allowed for field visits, while the second year (2020–2021) did not due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was not ideal, but allowed for the opportunity to explore the ways in which fieldwork has been irrevocably changed in the context of global pandemics. Other factors such as climate change will inevitably force researchers to identify ways to gather the type of data that one might in the field in other ways.

Even without a global pandemic, however, fieldwork—wherein a primary researcher and students have funding to go out into the field for months or even years on end—is becoming increasingly unrealistic. For one, Masters and PhD students are ever more non-traditional, meaning that the structure of their lives do not harbor the flexibility of many students in their late teens and early twenties. Further, funding issues, scheduling, and other logistics can make site visits a challenge. In the spirit of looking for a silver lining, the pandemic forced students and faculty to become more proficient in alternate means of exploring regions, doing what is possible to achieve the benefits of a field experience in a virtual or hybrid space. Thus, this project had to be flexible and nimble in achieving its original goals.

The student who was able to incorporate a field component felt as though they developed a new perspective on the place versus the one that had gathered through

#### *A Multi-Disciplinary Undergraduate Pedagogical Experience Looking at Attitudes… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101248*

spatial analysis alone. They felt as though visiting the region, meeting people, and seeing the landscape allowed for them to understand the local perspective, insofar as that the desert is not simply a barren wasteland on which corporations can project whatever vision they have for their bottom line. Similarly, on the field trip, this student recognized that the desert was far from an ecologically and biologically bereft region. The student wrote:

*"I realized that many people actually do not understand that the desert is not barren. Prior to going to the desert, I had the same idea. Seeing the rich biodiversity of the Mojave gave me an idea for how I wanted to start my StoryMap – with the importance of desert biology and what it means to residents." - 2019–2020 URAP student.*

Without visiting an area and exploring the local ecology, especially in an arid area where flora and fauna are subtle, it may be easier for stakeholders to see the landscape as interchangeable or dispensable. This student found an increased appreciation for the biodiversity of the ecosystem, thus better understanding why residents felt so strongly about protecting the local ecology, as well as contributing to the way they saw the controversial local issues.

The 2020–2021 student was unable to incorporate a field component due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as previously discussed, the purely field-based model will no longer be practical in years to come, for multiple reasons. The skills gained by this student will thus facilitate their resilience in an increasingly uncertain future. They wrote about the ways in which they became more adaptable. In particular, their written and verbal communication skills became more sophisticated, as well as their use of virtual tools that became increasingly popular during the pandemic. While not fieldwork per se, they enabled the student to engage with residents in the region and made them more nimble with respect to changes in research directions.

#### *4.3.3 Multi-methodological research*

Both students believed that they could not have fully understood the topic to the extent that they eventually did without using multiple methodologies. Said a student:

*"I have never used quite the range of disciplines and tools that this project has exposed me to, especially to answer a singular question. Having different lenses allowed me to exercise my visual and auditory learning skills and feel much more deeply engaged in the topic." - 2020–2021 URAP student.*

Both reported that using multiple methods enabled them to better understand the range of opinions informing the topic.

#### *4.3.4 Impact on academic career*

Both students presented their research at a number of academic conferences, including the Association of American Geographers annual meeting, the University Consortium for Geographic Science, the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences conference, and the Los Angeles Geospatial Summit. This involved developing project abstracts tailored to a particular conference theme, identifying appropriate panels, and creating presentations designed for wide and expert audiences.

Perhaps most profoundly, both students independently reported that the project strongly influenced their decision to apply (and be admitted to) graduate school in environmental studies and sciences. Further, both students stated that their approach to environmental problem solving had become multidisciplinary, recognizing the importance of both the environmental and social sciences. This experience invigorated students to think differently about their academic and professional careers, as well as how they will approach these spaces with a methodological toolbox capable of environmental problem solving in a complex world.

#### **5. Conclusions**

This research project provided a case study wherein undergraduate students used multidisciplinary research to better understand conflicts in the Mojave Desert around solar development. Overall, there were some key conclusions drawn about the topic area generally. The driving question examined in this project was why there was a discrepancy between a broad support for massive solar development at the state and national level, and a suspicion or downright opposition at the local level. Each student in this project came to a different conclusions about this situation. One student emerged highly skeptical of industrial scale solar development, given the way in which it impacts local flora and fauna. The second student completed the project thinking about the ways in which historical development in the region influences certain attitudes. Namely, this student felt as though residents were more suspicious of corporate agency over the region than industrial scale solar itself. Each student expressed this in the outcomes from the project, including the Esri StoryMap and at conference presentations. That both students came away from the project with a different skill set and different understandings of solar development in the Mojave region means that the project achieved one of its primary pedagogical goals, which was to enable students with the data- quantitative and qualitative- to better understand the issue and come to their own conclusions.

At the end of the day, the fact that the two student researchers completed the project with multiple conference presentations and awards under their belts is telling. As previously discussed, during the process both found the desire to attend graduate school, specifically in the project's related fields of geodesign and alternative energy. This speaks to the way in which self-directed, multidisciplinary projects can light a fire in students, motivating them to pursue environmental problem solving from a unique perspective.

We hope that this study can inform other researchers. The pedagogical approaches here—active learning, deep learning, multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary research—were effective in providing students with professional opportunities in the form of conference presentations and publications, as well as direction with respect to their own life choices. Further, both students better understood the ways in which solar siting is not just an issue related to aspect, slope, and radiation. Rather, human attitudes must be understood as a critical component of decision-making. Pedagogically, both students learned how to integrate technical approaches with attitudinal research. There remains much left to be done.

#### **6. Recommendations for further research**

There is ample room for future research. One critical component that was not executed was the interpolation of attitudes across space. While interpolation of

#### *A Multi-Disciplinary Undergraduate Pedagogical Experience Looking at Attitudes… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101248*

physical factors, such as elevation, have relatively straightforward approaches, interpolating attitudes is immensely more complicated to perform correctly. Further, interpolating attitudes across space, especially in rural areas, can result in erroneous interpretations. While this project did some basic mapping, much more work in this space is critical.

Also, it would be important to conduct a demographically representative survey. In a region where county sizes differ dramatically and population density is extremely variable, this type of data collection is complex. This would require substantive funding. But there is still work that could be done with the survey data that has already been collected. For one, attitudes towards industrial solar and residential solar should be analyzed separately, given that the interview data suggested that they may be inversely correlated. Second, basic factor analysis and Cronbach alpha reliability testing could be conducted on the survey question item responses. This would suggest what attitudes track together, thus enabling stakeholders to better understand how local respondents feel towards a suite of issues, rather than individually.

Another aspect of the project which did not come to fruition was participatory mapping by elected representatives on behalf of their stakeholders. This was conceived of as a proxy for surveying residents that would be much less expensive and easier to execute. While the student researcher sent out more than 150 emails, only one response was received. The reason for this is uncertain, but the researchers identified some possibilities. For one, represented officials have multiple demands on their time. Further, while clear directions as to how to use the participatory mapping project were given, there was a registration process that may have impeded participation. Also, some representatives may simply not be informed as to the attitudes of their constituencies with respect to solar development. All of these factors should be considered when attempting to investigate further questions about attitudes towards solar development in the future.
