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Natalie Fordwor brings interdisciplinary lessons to kids’ TV show in Ghana

Natalie Fordwor ’12 is using all the academic skills she honed as an undergraduate at Lawrence University in her role as founder and host of The Wonderspaced Show, a creative and energetic children’s television program that launched last year in her home country of Ghana.

Environmental stewardship? Check. An environmental studies major at Lawrence, Fordwor spends considerable time on the show leading kids though lessons in geology, recycling, and general environmental consciousness. 

“I know I love kids and I know I love environmentally-focused things, but how do I bring them together?” Fordwor said in a call from her office in Accra, Ghana. “That’s where the journey began.”

Art? Science? History? Folktales? Travel? Education? Yes to all of those lessons that were wrapped into her Lawrence education. All are avenues of exploration on the weekly show—all with a Ghanaian focus—as she takes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, something she embraced as an international student at Lawrence a decade ago and wants to share widely in Ghana and beyond.

“The interdisciplinary approach totally informs what I do,” said Fordwor, who also works as an adjunct lecturer at Ashesi University in Accra. “I know the experience at Lawrence was definitely influential in all this. I was tired of seeing science on one side, arts on another side. That tends to happen in our curriculum in Ghana. Not just Ghana, but lots of places. Seeing the liberal arts at work at Lawrence, I knew it could be better here. … I am an advocate for the liberal arts and interdisciplinary education everywhere.” 

Original source can be found here.