Building Interdisciplinary Communication Skills.

The importance of interdisciplinary research and communication has been recognized in graduate student training.  Less attention has been focused on the transfer of these skills to undergraduates.  As part of the USDA-funded, Regional Approaches to Climate Change- Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCH-PNA) project, we have addressed these skills through the use of the Toolbox Instrument, which was originally developed to assist research groups in achieving affective interdisciplinary communication.  We will discuss how project personnel have modified the Toolbox for use with undergraduate students and provide a preliminary assessment of its efficacy in development of interdisciplinary communication skills.