Written by Ann Nordby
As Prof. Bruce Wilson retires from teaching, he is very optimistic about the future, despite the huge challenges of feeding a growing, warming planet.
"The students I've worked with recently are the best bunch of students I've worked with throughout my career. And that is good, because we have big challenges," Wilson said recently.

Among those challenges: declining water quality and natural habitats, revealed by soil samples from around Minnesota. As a water resources and ecological engineering expert, Wilson understands the arc of this change better than most. He recounts the history of agricultural drainage through the story of his own family farm in western Minnesota. Around 1900, parts of the land were drained to make it more suitable for growing crops. Since then, generations of his family have added more and more drainage. Today, the land is fully farmed and no water stands on the surface. Unfortunately, efficient drainage causes big problems downstream.
"The effects of all that plumbing are good for farming but not so good for filtering sediment from going into our waterways." Half of Minnesota's wetlands have disappeared since 1900.
Erosion, the removal of soil from the source to another point, is the largest contaminant in our water systems. All that water washes away materials like phosphorus, found in fertilizer, which harm rivers and streams. The sheer volume of water can change the course of rivers, taking away natural habitats.
By the time Wilson came to the University of Minnesota 50 years ago as an undergraduate, he had seen the lake at the edge of his family farm silt up completely. He wanted to do something positive for the environment, so he applied his knowledge of agriculture and interest in science to agricultural engineering, eventually earning a PhD. For more than 30 years, he has researched and taught water resources and ecological engineering.
Teaching for a changing field
During his career, Wilson has seen big changes in the field of agricultural engineering. He and his colleagues have adapted their teaching accordingly. "In the 1970s the emphasis of our degree was on the physical aspects of water – the volume of the water and the mass of the sediment. Physics was the science behind it. In the 1980s, we got interested in water quality – such as nitrates and pesticides in the water, so we had to integrate chemistry into the curriculum. In the 90s, we got interested in the biological aspects - what's the biological activity in the water? What's the fish population? How can we stabilize it?"
To meet these needs, he designed a unique course, Biological and Environmental Thermodynamics, which is a requirement for BBE undergraduate majors. It teaches systems thinking in ecological environments. Students learn to look at each project as unique. Solutions to erosion are never one-size-fits-all. Tackling them requires a look at the physical, chemical and biological factors at work in each.
"Cramming all that material into a curriculum is very challenging for an instructor," he said. "For students, it's so much more interesting because there's so much variety. You have to know a lot about the system." He has developed a book based on the course, and his first project in retirement is to publish it so that he can pass along this teaching knowledge to others. He will also be working with faculty in the coming year to hand off his courses elegantly.
He feels proud of his contributions, but also knows that students have changed, too. "Today's students see the world and want to do more than get a high-paying job. They want to make a positive impact." He said he can read it in the faces of students in his classrooms. "Instead of wanting to know the material because it might be on the test, they are listening and thinking, "I might need to know this".
"We have the need to produce food and to protect the environment. We need innovative solutions to help solve these problems. Climate change is a major driver. We need to figure out how to build resilience in our systems. That is more important now than it was in the past. Based on the students I'm working with, I'm optimistic that they will be able to do that."