Integrate Sustainability into Your Course
The integration of sustainability across disciplines is not only important to prepare students to advance the common good, but it is also full of possibilities for course content and pedagogy. Integrating sustainability themes into courses can enrich teaching, student learning, and student engagement while fulfilling the mission of UST. Faculty Development is offering a workshop on integrating sustainability into UST courses on Jan. 7 & 8. All faculty are invited to register.
Date/Time
Monday, January 7, 2013
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Register for workshop!
Before the workshop: Select one of your courses to bring to the workshop. In advance of the workshop, consider the central concepts and skills that students should take away from your course.
Jan. 7 (1pm-5pm): We’ll examine two topics: 1) What is sustainability? and 2) How can sustainability themes enrich students’ learning of the central concepts and skills from your course? Faculty who have integrated sustainability into their courses will provide examples to inspire this discussion. At the end of the day, you’ll have ideas about how sustainability relates to the driving questions and themes of your course.
Jan 8 (1pm-5pm): You’ll integrate sustainability themes into your course. You can do this in small ways by using sustainability themes in problem sets, discussions, or writing and research assignments, or in larger ways by using sustainability as a driving theme for course units or your entire course. We’ll also discuss how sustainability themes can enhance pedagogy and student engagement. At the end of the day, you’ll have a course that integrates sustainability themes as well as ideas and resources to continue course development.
In mid-spring, we’ll meet to discuss how spring courses or plans for future courses are going.
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Workshop Facilitator Maria Dahmus develops Academic Sustainability Initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences to facilitate the integration of sustainability across the curriculum and co-curricular activities. She received her Ph.D. from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin and studied urban ecosystems as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Minnesota. |
This workshop will be especially useful for CAS faculty who would like to apply for a CAS Environmental Sustainability curriculum grant or the Curricular Innovation in Sustainability award. The curriculum grant supports course development to integrate sustainability themes into courses. The curriculum award recognizes innovation and excellence in integrating sustainability themes into courses. Calls for CAS grant and award applications will be announced in early Spring.