Curriculum

Introduction

One of the primary functions of colleges and universities is to educate students. By training and educating future leaders, scholars, workers, and professionals; higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to understand and address sustainability challenges. Institutions that offer courses covering sustainability issues help equip their students to lead society to a sustainable future.

7980 resources

UTA CARES: Open Education and Open Pedagogy for Sustainable Future and Resource Conservation

  • University of Texas at Arlington (TX)

Reducing the cost of a college education is a frequent topic in higher education circles. Some colleges and universities such as UT Arlington have been trying to find other ways ...


GreenApps Eco-Reps Sustainability Leadership and Engagement Course

  • Appalachian State University (NC)

The GreenApps: Eco-Reps Program was developed in order to recruit on-campus students to join the Office of Sustainability team to assist with education and promotion of campus sustainability through a ...


Master of Arts in Food Studies

  • Chatham University (PA)

Chatham University's Master of Arts in Food Studies is a part of their Falk School of Sustainability & Environment. The interdisciplinary program trains students to understand and analyze holistic ...

  • Posted May 15, 2017
  • Academic Programs
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Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies

  • Florida Gulf Coast University (FL)

Florida Gulf Coast University’s Bachelor of Arts in Environmental studies is designed to prepare students for a large network of job opportunities in the environmental field.The program incorporates ...

  • Posted May 15, 2017
  • Academic Programs
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Sustainability Certificate Program: Creating Community through Cohorts

  • University of Georgia (GA)

The Certificate in Sustainability will enhance opportunities for integrative, applied learning in interdisciplinary settings as well as prepare students to address difficult global sustainability issues. The certificate will also work ...

  • Posted May 15, 2017
  • Academic Programs
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Master of Science (M. Sc.) in Agricultural Economics

  • McGill University (QC)

This program provides students with applied economic concepts and tools to identify, define, and analyze economic problems affecting the performance of the agri-food sector and the environment. The ideal prior ...

  • Posted May 15, 2017
  • Academic Programs
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Using role-playing games to broaden engineering education

  • Chalmers University of Technology

Purpose: In today’s complex society, there is an increasing demand to include a wider set of skills in engineering curricula, especially skills related to policy, society and sustainable development ...


An auto-photographic study of undergraduate students’ conceptions of ocean sustainability

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ understandings of ocean sustainability and the pedagogical influence of higher education on those conceptions.

Design/methodology/approach: The conceptions of ...


Assessment of undergraduate students’ environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge

  • James Madison University (VA)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a public university’s design and implementation of an assessment approach that measures the change in undergraduate students’ environmental stewardship reasoning ...


Linking Sustainability with Study Abroad

  • Delta College (MI)

This project describes the planning, development, and implementation of integrating sustainability into study abroad in existing travel and through establishing new destinations. It also constructs a model that includes a ...


University Colloquium | Service Learning Project

  • Florida Gulf Coast University (FL)

This video was created by students for a colloquium class project to address some of the projects and initiatives FGCU does to decrease our carbon footprint within the energy sector ...

  • Posted May 15, 2017
  • Videos & Webinars
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The Roles of Policy, Conceptualizations, and Pedagogical Methods in Teaching about Sustainable Consumption in Higher Education: A Mixed Methods Study

  • University of Saskatchewan (SK)

This study sought to understand how sustainable consumption (SC) is taught within Canadian post-secondary education (PSE) institutions. More specifically, this study investigated how faculty define and conceptualize SC, both personally ...


NCSU Initiatives for Faculty Participation in Sustainability Efforts

  • North Carolina State University (NC)

This project seeks to understand the perspectives of faculty members as it relates to sustainability at North Carolina State University. Specifically, an online survey of randomly selected 500 faculty was ...


Content trends in sustainable business education: an analysis of introductory courses in the USA

  • Loyola University Chicago (IL)

Purpose - This study aims to identify the content in introductory business sustainability courses in the USA to determine the most frequently assigned reading material and its sustainability orientation.

Design/methodology ...


An Assessment of Sustainability Integration and Communication in Canadian MBA Programs

  • Saint Mary's University (NS)

This paper explores how sustainability has been integrated into and communicated in Canadian Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) programs. We content analyzed university, business school, and MBA program mission ...


Love and social justice in learning for sustainability

  • University of Edinburgh

The planet seems to be heading into an ecological catastrophe, in which the earth will become uninhabitable for many species, including human beings. At the same time we humans are ...


Analysing the inclusion of stand-alone courses on ethics and CSR: A study of the MBA curricula of the Financial Times top-ranked business schools

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how the Master of Business Administration (MBA) curricula of top-ranked business schools are offering stand-alone courses on ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). To ...


Temple Tiny House

  • Temple University (PA)

The Temple University Tiny House project is a student designed and student constructed sustainable building located at Temple Community Garden on main campus. Completed in spring 2017, the 175 square ...


The Urban Agriculture Community-based Research Experience (U-ACRE) Project

  • California State University, Fullerton (CA)
  • Fullerton College (CA)
  • Santa Ana College (CA)
  • University of California, Santa Barbara (CA)

In Orange County, 36% of low-income households experience hunger at least once a day and well over 1/3 are children. Engaging students in experiential learning that addresses sustainability in ...


Sustainability Marketing, Messaging and Design for Good at Chemeketa Community College

  • Chemeketa Community College (OR)

Chemeketa Sustainability served as a client to the college's Visual Communications program to create cohesive marketing for use in future sustainability campaigns and promotions.


Sustaining education for sustainability in turbulent times

  • James Cook University (Queensland)

A study of two schools in northern Australia demonstrated the impact on Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiatives of a disruptive policy environment set in motion by neoliberal reforms focused on ...


Surveying employment listings to inform curricula of environmental science degree programs

  • Brigham Young University (UT)

Environmental Science has emerged as a common bachelor’s of science (B.S.) degree at colleges and universities throughout the USA, with growing enrollment and more than 1100 degrees offered ...


Shared place and space: a comparison of two interdisciplinary graduate programs

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI)

Interdisciplinary training has an important role to play in environmental research, but what aspects of interdisciplinary training are most helpful for graduate students as they seek to define themselves as ...


Integrated traditional and applied education—exploring sustainable cities and regions in classrooms and communities

  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC)

The most effective and promising models for teaching sustainability sciences and studies in a university setting are a topic of vigorous debate. This paper discusses an integrated sustainability curriculum at ...


Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future: student research, social media, and suburban sustainability

  • Roosevelt University (IL)

The Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future (SSF) online social media project is a student-faculty collaboration at Roosevelt University that addresses sustainability issues, challenges, and solutions in the northwest suburbs of Chicago ...


Applying the process of backward design in revising an environmental science program

  • Georgia College & State University (GA)

The purpose of this article is to share our model of a successful curriculum reform process and provide an overview so that it can be replicated by other programs. The ...


Fostering STEM literacy through a tabletop wind turbine environmental science laboratory activity

  • University of Southern Maine (ME)

Increasingly, national education policy is focusing on improving science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) literacy by using energy as a subject matter. In particular, The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS ...


From polyps to politics: using a coral reef living laboratory in a politics of sustainability course

  • Rosemont College (PA)

Teaching Global Environmental Politics faces several challenges to meet student learning objectives. For one, the interdisciplinary nature of global environmental politics requires significant knowledge of environmental issues, as well as ...


Re-imagining environmental science and policy graduate education for the twenty-first century using an integrative frame

  • Clark University (MA)

To meet society’s need to better understand and respond to ever-more complex, interwoven problems of environment, development, and society - including environmental health risks, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development ...


Teaching Social Research Methods on an International, Collaborative Environment & Sustainability Degree Programme: Exploring plagiarism, group work, and formative feedback

International collaboration is central to the Sustainable Development agenda given environmental challenges that span national boundaries. Education for Sustainability therefore needs to account for international/intercultural understandings, such as though ...


The Future of Sustainability in Higher Education

  • Bowling Green State University (OH)

In this article, I explore the future of higher education within the context of teaching and learning for sustainability. Challenges currently facing sustainability education are identified along with opportunities to ...


Sustainable knowledge transformation in and through higher education: A case for transdisciplinary leadership

  • Ollscoil na Gaillimhe - University of Galway (Co. Galway)

This article explores inter- and transdisciplinarity, given the need for more complex, relevant, and transformative knowledge to shift society towards more sustainable futures. It connects practical questions about economic, societal ...


Is Education for Sustainable Development the means to bring about inclusive development? Between idealist and alternative positions

  • Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

‘Adjectival educations’, include a great diversity of proposals within which Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) features prominently. ESD has enjoyed privileged attention from international organizations, in order to move political ...


Higher Education in the Environmental Century

The environmental crisis that threatens the future of our species is unprecedented as we begin the “environmental century.” Natural conditions that were favorable for the development of civilization have been ...


An On-Campus Botanical Tour to Promote Student Satisfaction and Learning in a University Level Biodiversity or General Biology Course

  • Xavier University of Louisiana (LA)

Outdoor, hands-on and experiential learning, as opposed to instruction-based learning in classroom, increases student satisfaction and motivation leading to a deeper understanding of the subject. However, the use of outdoor ...


High Performance Education Fails in Sustainability? - A Reflection on Finnish Primary Teacher Education

  • Åbo Akademi University (Varsinais-Suomi)
  • University of Helsinki

Sustainability is internationally often emphasized as an essential aim of higher education, but more as a principle than on the practical level. This is also obvious in the academic education ...


Critical Thinking and Normative Competencies for Sustainability Science Education

  • Hokkaido University (Hokkaido)

In this paper, we extend the competencies framework of education for sustainability development (ESD) to argue that critical thinking should be taught as a core competency and that normative dialogue ...


Community-level environmental projects as learning tools for planners: a case study of graduate planning students

Despite the potential environmental impact of urban planning, there is little research on Environmental Education (EE) in the context of urban planning curricula. This study follows graduate planning students’ learning ...


Alive, Survive, Strive, Thrive: A Grounded Conceptual Sustainability Taxonomy

  • Bowling Green State University (OH)

A conceptual sustainability taxonomy has been needed to better communicate the value of sustainability, to align sustainability scholars’ theories and sustainability educators’ practices, and to develop curriculum, teaching, learning, and ...


A Rubric to Analyze Student Abilities to Engage in Sustainable Design

  • Georgia Institute of Technology (GA)
  • James Madison University (VA)
  • The Citadel (SC)

As engineering programs have begun to infuse sustainability into their undergraduate curricula, assessment tools are needed to further inform these reform efforts. The goal of this project was to demonstrate ...


UAlbany's Annual Family Earth Day

  • University at Albany (NY)

The University’s 5th Annual UAlbany Family Earth Day, organized by the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (DAES), Atmospheric Science Research Center, Office of Sustainability and UAlbany Students for ...


Succulents at the Earth Day Expo

  • University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (MN)

Close-up shot of succulents that were made available for students to plant at the Earth Day Expo at the University of Minnesota. The Office of Sustainability challenged students and staff ...


Finance and Curriculum

  • Texas A&M University-Commerce (TX)
  1. Relating the assignment to the University Mission
  2. Answering student demand
  3. Addressing programmatic structure
  • Posted April 28, 2017
  • Conference Presentations
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Evergreen Fest 2017: Science and Climate Change Festival at Loyola University Maryland

  • Loyola University Maryland (MD)

Loyola University Maryland's Environmental Action Club hosts a full day of teach-in style presentations and interactive activities to celebrate the Earth with ACTION! The day was filled with opportunities ...

  • Posted April 28, 2017
  • Photographs
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FIE Presents Re-imagining Sustainability: Creating Our Future

  • FIE: Foundation for International Education (London)

As a higher education teaching tool, this video takes a journey through the myths, the truths, and the reality of sustainability in our world.

As an articulated value, the Foundation ...

  • Posted April 27, 2017
  • Videos & Webinars
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Bike-Powered Smoothie Maker

  • Florida Gulf Coast University (FL)

During our Earth Day event, students had the opportunity to make their own bike-powered smoothie. Our engineering students built the system, as a part of their class project.

  • Posted April 27, 2017
  • Photographs
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Captain Planet joins The GREEN Program Team for the Philadelphia Science March

  • The GREEN Program (PA)

Saturday, April 22, Earth Day 2017, The GREEN Program team, partners and GREEN Alumni (with honorary team member, Captain Planet), took to the streets of Philadelphia to join our city ...

  • Posted April 27, 2017
  • Photographs
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Strategies Toward the Inclusion of Environmental Education in Educator Preparation Programs: Results from a National Survey

  • Trinity University (TX)
  • University of Texas at San Antonio (TX)

A national study was conducted to investigate the inclusion of environmental education (EE) into educator preparation programs across the United States. Responses from teacher educators in institutions of higher education ...

  • Posted April 27, 2017
  • Publications
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Infusing Education for Sustainable Development into University Academics, Research, and Engagement through Faculty Training Programs

  • University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (TX)
  1. Participants will be able to identify the impact of sustainability education and apply lessons learned to their programs
  2. Participants will be able to communicate the intended outcomes for their program ...
  • Posted April 25, 2017
  • Conference Presentations
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Integrating Education for Sustainable Development through Tree Campus USA

  • University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (TX)
  1. Participants will be able to identify the advantages of including credit-based learning in the project versus hiring consultants
  2. Participants will be able to extrapolate and apply a plan for implementation ...
  • Posted April 25, 2017
  • Conference Presentations
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This tab provides access to data collected through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS). STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS enables meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the campus sustainability community.

All responses reference content from reports under the latest version of STARS, version 2.2. AASHE membership and log-in is required.

AC 1: Academic Courses

AC 2: Learning Outcomes

AC 3: Undergraduate Program

AC 4: Graduate Program

AC 5: Immersive Experience

AC 6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

AC 7: Incentives for Developing Courses

AC 8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.

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