LTA Connect: The A-B Tree Project: The Gaelic tree alphabet as a structure for interdisciplinary learning

Session Resources

Session slides | Session recording

Session Outline

We all know interdisciplinary learning is a good idea but how do we deliver it in practice? This seminar will present the latest findings from the A-B-Craobh (A-B-Tree) project, which has been seeking to deepen our understanding of the interdisciplinary learning experience by helping arts students to learn about trees and forestry students to create poetry and learn about woodland culture. Specific topics to be covered include: an evaluation of facilitation methods (developed during the COVID pandemic) blending outdoor solo and online group activities; exploration of why the creative-scientific blend of learning seems so powerful; and discussion of how we can develop the community of practice in UHI exploring the science-arts edge-zone.

Presenter Bio

Mandy Haggith is a lecturer in literature and creative writing at Inverness UHI. She lives on a wooded coastal croft in Assynt. Since 2011 she has run a project about tree poetry called A-B-Tree, inspired by the Gaelic tree alphabet. This is her second shot at academia – the first time around involved a PhD in artificial intelligence, after which she spent twenty years as a freelance environmental activist and writer. She is interested in blurring boundaries, such as those between the arts and sciences, those between research, creative practice and teaching and those between work and play. Her first novel won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award for environmental writing in 2009 and she has been poet in residence at the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens and Inverewe Gardens. Her books include four poetry collections (letting light in, Castings, A-B-Tree, Why the Sky is Far Away), a poetry anthology (Into the Forest), a non-fiction book (Paper Trails) and five novels: The Last Bear, Bear Witness and a novel trilogy set in the Iron Age, The Walrus Mutterer, The Amber Seeker and The Lyre Dancers.

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