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.
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Sustainability Journey: from the Classroom to the Living Room
- Elmhurst University (IL)
The concept of social responsibility and sustainable use of resources is getting widespread acceptance in industry. Consequently schools are experimenting with various ways of incorporating sustainability into their programs. Starting …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Beyond Carbon Offsetting: Making PLU Study Abroad Carbon Conscious
- Pacific Lutheran University (WA)
- Living Routes, Inc. (MA)
Universities are key leverage points in developing and implementing positive responses to climate change. Students must understand the basic science and need practical ways to implement changes in their own …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Cultivating Community-based Food Systems via Community Connections
- University of Vermont (VT)
I focus on campus-community partnerships via service-learning courses I teach at UVM (based on the PARE model and using Clayton’s DEAL approach to foster deep reflection) that relate to the …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Developing a sustainability curriculum: What are the core concepts?
- University of South Dakota (SD)
Sustainability is increasingly becoming an academic area of study. As we begin to develop academic programs focused on sustainability, a key question is “what concepts constitute the foundation of a …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Using co-instruction to enhance information literacy in sustainability education
- University of South Dakota (SD)
All college graduates should have strong oral and written communication skills, but these skills are especially important for students studying sustainability because sustainability is a new concept for many people …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Innovative Pedagogies: Linking Learning to Communities
- Bucknell University (PA)
- Rice University (TX)
- Utah Valley University (UT)
- Wells College (NY)
- Willamette University (OR)
This discussion will involve participants in thinking critically about how infusing sustainability into humanities and social science curricula can create innovative pedagogical strategies that connect students with their campus and …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability Across the Nutrition & Food Science Curriculum
- Georgia Southern University (GA)
In 2012, the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics revised accreditation standards to require that concepts of sustainability be taught in all nutrition and dietetic education programs. However, …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Transformative Learning Through Small Group Discussion: Course Book Resources to Accelerate Change
- EcoChallenge.org (OR)
At the 2013 AASHE conference, Stephen Mulkey, President of Unity College, offered a plenary session on Organizational Change for Sustainability Education, which highlighted the need for increased initiatives working to …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Assessing the impact of sustainability faculty learning communities
- University of Vermont (VT)
What are the necessary elements to create institutional change through infusing sustainability into the curriculum at a university of wide scope and scale? The University of Vermont (UVM) Sustainability Faculty …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Trash Talks: revealing the potential of a building’s waste stream
- Portland State University (OR)
My case study will examine how a day’s waste from a single dumpster can be used to provoke art and design students into discussion and multilateral thinking about how choice …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Geodesign Approach to GIS for Sustainability Management
- University of Washington, Seattle (WA)
Geodesign is an emerging approach to using geographic information systems (GIS) for addressing complex sustainable systems problems, e.g., improving land use, transportation, and water resources that have impacts on each …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Regional Centers for ESD: Increasing Impact Through Collaboration
- Portland Community College (OR)
- Portland State University (OR)
- York University
- University of Regina (SK)
- Aquinas College (MI)
Can you envision healthy, just, and thriving communities where sustainability education is prioritized and everyone has opportunities to shape a more sustainable future? The United Nations University has fostered an …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Building Sustainability into an Operations Management Curriculum
- Portland State University (OR)
- Presidio Graduate School (CA)
Paralleling the business community, business schools increasingly face pressure from their various stakeholders to address sustainability issues. Several schools (e.g., Presidio Graduate School, Bainbridge Graduate Institute, and Portland State University) …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Integrating sustainability education into universities
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (DF)
- Tecnológico de Monterrey – Campus León
During this workshop we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies for integrating sustainability education into universities as well as the real-world, experiential pedagogy used to target sustainability …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability in Career-Technical Education: A Multiple Case Study
- University of Idaho (ID)
This session will provide multiple case study of how three community colleges in the Pacific Northwest introduced Career and Technical Education energy programs on their campuses. Consideration was given to …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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GIS for Sustainability Management in Higher Education
- University of Washington, Seattle (WA)
Geographic information systems (GIS) are commonly formed from a combination of data, software, hardware, people, institutional arrangements and motivations for collecting, analyzing and displaying spatial and temporal referenced data that …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Business and Social Justice: Review and Analysis
- Seattle University (WA)
BACKGROUND: Today we academics consider ‘sustainability’ to encompass social impacts and resulting justice implications as well as environmental impacts and long-range implications, but in the realm of ‘Sustainable Business,’ the …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability Literacy--Assessment Development by Carl Obermiller & April Atwood
- Seattle University (WA)
Introduction This presentation will provide an overview of the ‘measuring sustainability literacy’ project that is underway at Seattle University. A sustainability literacy scale (SUstlit) has been developed, tested, and refined; …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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An Academic Foundation for Sustainability Studies
- Indiana University South Bend (IN)
The elements of the academic mission of teaching, research, and service of every established discipline within the academy rests and is developed upon the basis of shared paradigmatic or multi-paradigmatic …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Channel Sustainability: Applying & Sharing though Video Projects
- Indiana University South Bend (IN)
How better to teach students about an interdisciplinary topic such as sustainability than by using an interdisciplinary approach to assignments? Integrating video projects and assignments in courses as well as …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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AMS Partnerships to Raise Scientific Literacy
- American Meteorological Society (DC)
Collaborations are key to success and have allowed the American Meteorological Society to expand or enhance geoscience literacy curricula, including courses featuring sustainability, at hundreds of post-secondary institutions throughout the …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Campuses as Living Laboratories for Sustainable Communities
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
- Portland State University (OR)
- EcoDistricts (OR)
How can universities use ecodistricts to create transformational change in the campus setting? What are the key roles for academic institutions to accelerate sustainable neighborhood development in their communities? This …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Fostering sustainability leadership
- Portland State University (OR)
Complex sustainability challenges require new values, skills, structures, and ultimately, a new leadership paradigm. Since higher education currently plays an important role in leadership development (Eich, 2008), it thus has …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Design Thinking & Sustainability Problem Solving: Reconceptualizing the First Year Curriculum
- Wesleyan College (GA)
- EcoEthos Solutions (GA)
Key behavioral outcomes for Education for Sustainability are: an ability use a sustainability lens to identify and solve complex human-centered problems and empowering students to thrive in a rapidly changing …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Model for Integrating Sustainability within Global Studies
- University of Virginia (VA)
Integrating sustainability across the curriculum is an important goal for AASHE members engaged in teaching and academic administration. While many disciplines and departments have been receptive to this change, others …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Content & pedagogy framework: To embed sustainability in curriculum
- Macquarie University (NSW)
As the sustainability movement gains greater momentum within the tertiary education space, institutions are increasingly asking the question of how sustainability goes beyond campus operations to be embedded more holistically …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability in Gen Ed After 1 Year: Assessment and Challenges
- University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (WI)
In Fall 2013, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh initiated a new general education program called the University Studies Program (USP) that incorporated sustainability as one of its three “signature questions.” …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Building a Living Learning Community: Big Problems and Big Success
- University of Minnesota, Duluth (MN)
’A sustainability-themed living/learning community is a bad idea. This sort of thing has been tried before. It was a failure then, and this will be no different.’ This was the …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Food Systems Education: New Approaches for a Global Scope
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (MN)
The University of Minnesota-- Twin Cities is home to several innovative courses in food systems. Despite differences in mode and focus of instruction, a key commonality among these courses is …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Student Workers Building Sustainable Communities
- Evergreen State College, The (WA)
The Evergreen State College has a unique student worker program in its residence halls since its founding in 1971. Students work with professional staff to perform the custodial and maintenance …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Education for Sustainability at UNAM
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (DF)
- Environmental Leadership Program (MD)
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) contributes to the formation of new generations, providing a vision that allows them to build multidisciplinary solutions for increasingly large and complex problems, …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Food Systems Northwest: A collaborative traveling summer course
- University of Puget Sound (WA)
- Willamette University (OR)
Around the country, scholars are beginning to recognize the centrality of food and agriculture in questions of sustainability, social justice, economic development, and international affairs (Poppendleck, 2000; Hinrichs 2003; Werkerle, …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Using campus farms to engage students in experiential learning
- Linfield College (OR)
- Linn-Benton Community College (OR)
- Pacific University (OR)
- Portland State University (OR)
- Willamette University (OR)
Growing food on college campuses is deeply rooted in many institutions of higher learning. There are many reasons for engaging in food production at these institutions and these reasons change …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Co-Creating Education for the Future: Constructing Highly Effective Programs in Sustainability Studies
- University of North Carolina, Greensboro (NC)
- Littleglobe (NM)
Institutions of higher education are transforming their curriculum to better equip students for the complex challenges of the 21st Century and beyond. In this concurrent session workshop, faculty, students, and …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Studying Sustainability Studies: A Comparative Analysis of 42 U.S. Degree Programs
- University of Texas at Austin (TX)
What does a degree in Sustainability Studies look like? Institutions of higher education are in the process of transforming their academic offerings to better equip students for the complex challenges …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure: The Campus as a Living Lab
- California State University, East Bay (CA)
In 2012-13, the Provost of the California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) funded an innovative program to engage campus faculty, staff, and students in Programmatic Excellence and Innovation in Learning …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Curricular Engagement in Building Sustainable Communities
- Dickinson College (PA)
Dickinson College is leading the way in integrating sustainability across the curriculum. As an innovative liberal arts college, over 90% of our graduating students are taking sustainability-focused and related courses …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Minding the Gap: Connecting Academic and Operational Sustainability
- Appalachian State University (NC)
- North Carolina State University (NC)
- University of North Carolina, Greensboro (NC)
This workshop considers three different models currently in practice to bridge operational and academic sustainability in the University of North Carolina (UNC) system. An interactive beginning will lay the groundwork …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Integrating Sustainability- the Land Grant University Lesson
- College of Charleston (SC)
Programs in sustainable agriculture do more than teach how to farm sustainably. They actually expand and deepen the understanding of many dimensions of sustainability. When a sustainable agriculture curriculum is …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Blending Sociology and Environmental Science at a Community College
- Highline Community College (WA)
We developed and co-taught a coordinated study class combining Sociology 101 and Environmental Science 101 at Highline Community College. In this class, we explored the foundations and intricacies of the …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Permaculture pedagogy: Critically engaging students through place
- Portland State University (OR)
The Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGL) is a 4-acre garden-education site in southeast Portland that facilitates hands-on and place-based education in sustainable gardening, healthy nutrition, and permaculture design for k-12, college …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Designing and Assessing Learning Outcomes in Co-curricular Sustainability Programs
- Portland State University (OR)
In recent years, co-curricular sustainability programs have been established at many higher education institutions. However, few such programs have developed learning outcomes (LOs) or assessment processes to measure the types …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Creative Strategies at the Nexus of Academics & Operations
- U.S. Green Building Council (DC)
- Purdue University (IN)
In order for campuses to achieve climate neutrality and reach a future state of sustainability and resiliency, more attention needs to be paid to existing facilities and infrastructure. However, this …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Assembling a canon for graduate curriculum in sustainability science
- Saint Louis University (MO)
Sustainability is vast in the intellectual domains it covers. While such breadth engenders its appeal to diverse interests, this same universality confounds operationalizing sustainability into a graduate curriculum. In this …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Developing partnerships with students around energy use: the role of energy literacy
- Simon Fraser University (BC)
- University of Plymouth (Devon)
Carbon reduction and climate change are key agendas in UK higher education (HE), as they are internationally. Existing research has highlighted the importance of developing partnerships for sustainable development in …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Knowing is not Enough: Linking Behavior to Knowledge and Other Factors
- The Ohio State University (OH)
Efforts to promote sustainability literacy come naturally to many colleges and universities, as imparting knowledge is part of the core mission of higher education. But “sustainability across the curriculum,” sustainability …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Campus as a Living Lab
- California State University, Chancellor's Office (CA)
- Central New Mexico Community College (NM)
- Pennsylvania State University (PA)
- Portland State University (OR)
Current research demonstrates that when real world problems are infused into education, students become more engaged in learning. Students in all disciplines can benefit from courses that introduce elements of …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Saving Lives: Using Art Curriculum To Reduce Bird Collisions On Campus and in Philadelphia
- Temple University (PA)
This session will provide a case study of how graphic design faculty used an experiential learning project to engage art students on sustainability while also aiding the university in addressing …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Impact of Education for Sustainability
- Green Mountain College (VT)
To justify the integration of sustainability education (EfS) across the curriculum and co-curriculum, we need better information about its impact on student engagement and on graduates’ life choices. In fall …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Training Students for Sustainability Practice – Curriculum v2.0
- Philadelphia University (PA)
Six years ago we launched a professionally-oriented undergraduate curriculum that confers a bachelors degree in Environmental Sustainability. Over the last year we have undertaken a critical review of this curriculum …
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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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
- 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.