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.
Featured Resources
Latest News from AASHE Bulletin
New Resources
Teaching sustainability within the context of everyday life: Steps toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through the EUSTEPs Module
- Global Footprint Network (CA)
- Universidade Aberta
- University of Coimbra
- University of Aveiro
- University of Siena
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Kentriki Makedonia)
In a world characterized by Ecological Overshoot, where humanity demands more from natural ecosystems than they can sustainably renew, education can nurture sustainability-minded citizens and future leaders to help accelerate …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
When students write comedy scripts: humor as an experiential learning method in environmental education
- Vienna University of Economics and Business
Humor has received increasing attention in environmental educational research in recent years as it can have a variety of positive effects on learning atmosphere, outcomes, and student-educator relationships. In most …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Threshold concepts and ESG performance: teaching accounting students reconceptualized fundamentals to drive future ESG advocacy
- University of Saskatchewan (SK)
Whether corporations voluntarily reduce their negative impacts on the environment and society depends upon management advocacy. As future corporate leaders, accounting students will have a critical advocacy role, but they …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Teaching management in the context of Grand Challenges: A pragmatist approach
- HEC Montréal (QC)
This article builds on the pragmatist approach of Grand Challenges to derive pedagogical strategies for management education, especially for courses that aim to prepare students to face the unprecedented context …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Sustainability training at Spanish public faculties of education: a virtual ethnography
- Universidad de Oviedo (Asturias)
- University of Malaga (Malaga)
Various institutional statements and official documents refer to the Sustainable Development Goals and sustainability training. This should imply a university education in these values, considering that those who are going …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Incorporating collaborative learning in teacher education to foster self-efficacy to implement environmental citizenship: an action research
- Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts (Tel Aviv District)
Purpose: Engaging students in environmental citizenship to promote education for sustainability (EfS) as an explicit goal of academic courses is not common, notwithstanding wide consensus on its importance. Collaborative learning …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Understanding urban sustainability from Mode 2 Science and transdisciplinary education: how Master Thesis Ateliers of the Ghent Stadsacademie tackle wicked issues
- Ghent University
The wicked sustainability problems that we are increasingly facing not only require new ways of knowledge production, but also challenge our traditional educational system. More and more importance is attached …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Examining undergraduate students’ systems thinking competency through a problem scenario in the context of climate change education
- National Sun Yat-sen University
Higher education plays an important role in preparing future citizens and leaders with the capacity to address systemic issues behind complex problems such as climate change. There have however been …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Learning regenerative cultures: Indigenous nations in higher education renewal in Australia
- Edith Cowan University
- Deakin University
- The University of Notre Dame Australia (WA)
What is regenerative learning in Australian higher education? This paper addresses the intersecting crises of climate, species loss and injustice; often called a conceptual emergency. We tackle the problem of …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Backcasting for sustainability – An approach to education for sustainable development in management
- HEC Montréal (QC)
“Utopia dynamizes action,” said Mathieu Régnier, curator of the MTL + exhibition at the Biosphere, Environment Museum in Montreal, to students of a sustainable development and management graduate course. The …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Understanding sustainability as a cyclical process: insights from social innovation and the adaptive cycle
- University of Portland (OR)
Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Life purposes: Comparing higher education students in four institutions in the Netherlands and Finland
- Tampere University of Applied Sciences
- Hanze University of Applied Sciences
- Universiteit voor Humanistiek
Universities worldwide are beginning to counter the prevailing neo-liberal ideology by paying renewed attention to the moral development of students and fostering their life purposes. This mixed methods study investigates …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Using normative case studies to examine ethical dilemmas for educators in an ecological crisis
- The University of Newcastle (NSW)
Environmental and sustainability initiatives seek to respond to the challenges of ecological crises and ongoing environmental degradation by supporting students to develop knowledge and dispositions to respond to the challenges …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Gamification to Improve Participation in an Environmental Science Course: An Educator’s Reflection
- University of Arizona (AZ)
Reticence prevalent among East Asian students has prompted educators to attempt different methods to engage them. Gamification of courses has gained popularity as an avenue to encourage students’ participation, and …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Education for Sustainability: Understanding Processes of Change across Individual, Collective, and System Levels
- Lund University
- Karolinska Institutet
Researchers and practitioners increasingly emphasise the need to complement dominant external, technological approaches with an internal focus to support transformation toward sustainability. However, knowledge on how this internal human dimension …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Where is Nature? Where is Nature in Nature and Outdoor Learning in Higher Education? An Analysis of Nature-Based Learning in Higher Education Using Multispecies Ethnography
- Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
The multiple crises of the 21st century once again highlight the significant role of sustain-able education in all educational institutions. Particularly in higher education, the inclu-sion of nature and animals …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Which “sustainable university” are we actually talking about? A topic modelling-assisted discourse analysis of academic literature
- Uppsala University
The remarkably growing body of academic literature on the university in relation to sustainability pivots around the idea that the university has an important role to play regarding this issue. …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Teaching, learning and assessment methods for sustainability education on the land–sea interface
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
The Land–Sea Interface (LSI) is where land and sea meet, not only in physical terms, but also with regards to a large variety of ecological and societal aspects. The United …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Teaching action-oriented knowledge on sustainability issues
- Uppsala University
- Ghent University
Knowledge about sustainability problems as it is typically taught does not per se lead to action for tackling these problems. Environmental and sustainability education researchers have argued for teaching more …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
The evolving engineer; professional accreditation sustainability criteria and societal imperatives and norms
- University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork (Co. Cork)
Professional accreditation criteria around sustainability are an important consideration in the delivery of accredited (chemical) engineering programmes. This paper looks at the sustainability related criteria required by a number of …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Unmasking the Action-Oriented ESD Approach to Acting Environmentally Friendly
- Monash University (VIC)
- Huaibei Normal University
Since the United Nations’ declaration on education for sustainable development (ESD), countries and universities across the globe aim to enhance sustainability consciousness, knowingness, attitude, and behavior among learners. However, there …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Justice in climate change education: a systematic review
- Colorado State University (CO)
- University of Cincinnati (OH)
Growing recognition of the multi-faceted injustices of climate change has resulted in shifting public and policy discourse around how to understand and address climate change, yet justice considerations are rarely …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Climate justice in higher education: a proposed paradigm shift towards a transformative role for colleges and universities
- Northeastern University (MA)
Moving beyond technocratic approaches to climate action, climate justice articulates a paradigm shift in how organizations think about their response to the climate crisis. This paper makes a conceptual contribution …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Intrapersonal capacities for sustainability: a change agent perspective on the ‘inner dimension’ of sustainability work
- Blekinge Institute of Technology
An ongoing discussion in education for sustainable development (ESD) research has focused on defining a list of agreed upon sustainability competencies required for the work of sustainability change agents. This …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Freire’s hope in radically changing times: a dialogue for curriculum integration from science education to face the climate crisis
- Universidad de Chile (Region Metropolitana)
- Escuela Básica Playas Negras in Coronel
This article advances a dialogue for understanding curriculum integration as a form of radical pedagogy, starting from science education in times of climate crisis. The paper weaves Paulo Freire’s work …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Student Development in Higher Education in the Era of the Agenda 2030 and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: Towards SDGs 2.0
- Université du Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
- Universities South Africa
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Higher Education Conference in Barcelona was an occasion for the authors of this article to reflect on the UN Sustainable Development …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Active methodologies and curricular sustainability in teacher training
- University of Jaén
- Universidad de Granada
Purpose: Changes in society, the economy and health require a response from higher education regarding the training of professionals, specifically, future teachers. In this sense, active methodologies constitute, in line …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Decolonising the design curriculum: making “sustainability” accessible, understandable and practicable to second-year undergraduate architecture students
- University of Queensland (QLD)
Purpose: This paper describes the curriculum design of an architectural studio course aimed at making concepts of sustainability accessible, understandable and practicable to second-year undergraduate students. Architectural education and design …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
The sustainable development goals in a Bachelor of Design course; current integration and benefits, constraints and opportunities for deeper integration
- University of Melbourne (Victoria)
Purpose: Universities’ unique position within society means they have an important role to contribute to sustainability and to help achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are one of the …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Addressing the Challenges of Preparing Teachers to Teach about the Climate Crisis
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (MN)
Teachers often lack adequate teacher preparation in knowledge and practices for engaging their students to address the climate crisis, suggesting the need for an increased focus on climate change in …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Changing the world one engineer at a time – unmaking the traditional engineering education when introducing sustainability subjects
- Linkoping University
Purpose: The information technology (IT) sector has been seen as central to society's transformation to a more just and sustainable society, which underlines teachers’ responsibility to foster engineers who can …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Preliminary Investigation of Sustainability Awareness and Activities among Academic Libraries in the United States
- University of Southern California (CA)
This paper explores sustainability, sustainability awareness, and how it is measured in academic libraries in the United States, and considers how assessment tools or key performance indicators (KPIs) could enhance …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Systems thinking for systems leadership: promoting competency development for graduate students in sustainability studies
- Virginia Tech (VA)
Purpose: This paper aims to offer a case study for teaching specific systems thinking competencies that promote leadership for systems change. It uses leadership as a novel way to identify …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom
- Allegheny College (PA)
This article moves beyond an understanding of environmental communication as merely the “translation” of scientific knowledge for the general public and advocates for environmental science and sustainability (ESS) educators to …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Six critical questions for teaching justice-based environmental sustainability (JBES) in higher education
- Beijing Normal University
- Universidade Federal de Sergipe
In this short article, we pose six key questions that we argue as essential to critically problem-pose in achieving teaching for justice-based environmental sustainability (JBES) in higher education (HE). We …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Eco-critical language awareness for English language teaching (ELT): Promoting justice, wellbeing, and sustainability in the classroom
- University of Alabama (AL)
Critical Language Awareness (CLA) seeks to promote social justice by explicitly calling attention to power issues in the context of literacy development and language instruction. In this article, we assert …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Higher education in turbulent times: navigating the transition from un-sustainability in a world dominated by technology
- Atlantic Technological University (Co. Galway)
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the implications for higher education of a rapidly changing global context, where technologies play a role in the propagation of …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Integrating sustainability themes for enhancing interdisciplinarity: a case study of a comprehensive research university in Japan
- Tohoku University
Interdisciplinary education and education for sustainable development provide a complementary approach to enhancing learners’ interdisciplinary and sustainability competencies. An interdisciplinary approach is considered a crucial method for enhancing university students’ …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Light Green – A Case Study of Sustainability Decoupling in Hospitality Education
- Kennesaw State University (GA)
Despite an increased commitment to sustainability, some argue that the hospitality industry and its supporting academic field remain “light green” as actual sustainability initiatives are shallow and decoupled from stated …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Research on sustainability leadership in higher education: a scoping review
- Mahidol University (Bangkok)
Purpose: Despite the centrality of leadership to the successful transformation of universities toward sustainability, the literature on the role and practices of sustainability leadership in higher education remains poorly developed. …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Connecting curricula and competence through student learning journeys
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg
This research examines the connection between higher education curricula for sustainable development and student development of key competencies for sustainability. The authors conducted a comparative case study that followed ten …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Sustainability as a purpose in life among Dutch higher education students
- Tampere University of Applied Sciences
- Hanze University of Applied Sciences
Given the prominence of sustainability in current global crises and the commitment of societies to the Sustainable Development Goals, this mixed methods study ascertains how Dutch higher education students (N …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Sustainable Academia: The Responsibilities of Academic Historians in a Climate-Impacted World
- University of Western Australia
- La Trobe University (Victoria)
- University College London (London)
- University of Tasmania (TAS)
- King's College London
Environmental degradation is the most serious challenge of the twenty-first century. To date, academic historians, among many others, have failed to fully confront the climate and biodiversity crises, often engaging …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Science|Environment|Health, One Health, Planetary Health, Sustainability, and Education for Sustainable Development: How Do They Connect in Health Teaching?
- Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
- Pädagogische Hochschule Luzern
In this paper, we explore Science|Environment|Health, One Health, Planetary Health, and Sustainability/Education for Sustainable Development in the context of the 2030 Agenda as four major frameworks that take a step …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
The Ecological Root Metaphor for Higher Education: Searching for Evidence of Conceptual Emergence within University Education Strategies
- University of Surrey
Recent research has suggested that Higher Education would benefit from the adoption of institutional models that relinquish ties to industrial thinking and associated metaphors. This long-established, market-led managerial perspective has …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Leadership, support and organisation for academics’ participation in engineering education change for sustainable development
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology
This work spotlights the experiences from ten years of implementing sustainable development in all educational programs at a technical university. With a focus on the critical issue of involving more …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Planetary health pedagogy: Preparing health promoters for 21st-century environmental challenges
- Deakin University
Issue addressed: Multiple interconnected drivers threaten the health and wellbeing of humans and the environment, including biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, rapid urbanisation and displacement. This requires enhanced literacy on …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Cultivating students’ sustainability-oriented learning at the interface of science and society: a configuration of interrelated enablers
- Wageningen University
Purpose: By envisioning the learning environment as an eco-social system, this study aims to map interrelated enablers of students’ sustainability-oriented learning (SoL) in the context of a university course at …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
What’s In a Name? The Signifiers and Empty Signifiers of Environmental Sustainability Education: Implications for Teacher Education
- Simon Fraser University (BC)
- Brock University (ON)
The purpose of this article is to examine how signifiers and empty signifiers may contribute to the mainstreaming of environmental and sustainability education in teacher education. We argue that the …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
Embedding Environmental Sustainability Education in a Master of Teaching Program: Reflections on Improvisation and Learning-by-Doing at OISE
- University of Toronto (ON)
The aim of this paper is to share our story about introducing environmental sustainability education (ESE) in an initial teacher education (ITE) program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in …
- Posted June 15, 2023
- Publications
- View more
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
- Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings
- Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings
- Inventory of sustainability course offerings (upload)
- Website URL - Sustainability course offerings
AC 2: Learning Outcomes
- Description of institution level sustainability learning outcomes
- List of degree programs that require an understanding of the concept of sustainability
- Percentage of students who graduate from programs that require an understanding of sustainability
- Website URL - Sustainability learning outcomes
AC 3: Undergraduate Program
- First sustainability-focused undergraduate degree program
- Second sustainability-focused undergraduate degree program
- Third sustainability-focused undergraduate degree program
- First sustainability-focused undergraduate minor or concentration
- Second sustainability-focused undergraduate minor or concentration
- Third sustainability-focused undergraduate minor or concentration
AC 4: Graduate Program
- First sustainability-focused graduate-level degree program
- Second sustainability-focused graduate-level degree program
- Third sustainability-focused graduate-level degree program
- First sustainability-focused graduate-level minor or concentration
- Second sustainability-focused graduate-level minor or concentration
- Third sustainability-focused graduate-level minor or concentration
AC 5: Immersive Experience
- Description of the sustainability-focused immersive program(s)
- Second sustainability-focused graduate-level degree program
- Third sustainability-focused graduate-level degree program
AC 6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment
- Copy of the sustainability literacy assessment (upload)
- Copy of the sustainability literacy assessment (description)
- Website URL - Assessment of sustainability literacy
AC 7: Incentives for Developing Courses
- Description of the course development incentives
- Website URL - Incentives for developing sustainability courses
AC 8: Campus as a Living Laboratory
Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.