AER-M2, February 2017: Workshop on sustainable water resource management in the Rwenzori region at Mountains of the Moon University

In the end of January 2017 the second APPEAR Project Strengthening of Higher Education, Research and Community Outreach in Agro-Ecology in the Rwenzori Region in Western Uganda - AER meeting took place at the MMU in Fort Portal. The meeting was jointly organised by members from MMU and BOKU, Vienna.

This meeting was dedicated – beside the formal project management work - for content workshops conducted by team members from BOKU (Prof. Dr. Bernhard Freyer and Phillipp Dietrich) facilitated by MMU staff (Clovis Kabaseke, Bruce Nyamweha and others).

In the first week of February AER team members from MMU and BOKU were presenting their updates of their working packages and the way forward of them were discussed.

The vivid discussions about the main concepts of the AER project were – as well as the conceptual framing – continued. AE teaching – as it has to be re-defined as a process of mutual learning in a transdisciplinary setting – was applied by approaching and analysing the regional food system in the Rwenzori region. The ordinary classroom setting was re-arranged for the workshop to allow a different physical organisation that enables intense communication between participants, in lecture, group work, discussions and so forth to allow interactions and social exchanges between all the learners to voice their ideas and learn from each other. The participants also were encouraged to teach their students to take notes during group exercises as this would aid them to learn taking minutes by the time they complete their university education. 

Beside the continuation of the discussions on the conceptual framing, the workshops was designed to also provide the theoretical bases and applied examples of transdisciplinary research, as well as to design the outline of the AE teaching units containing the crucial elements of AE teaching as learning for the  curriculum development at MMU.