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
New Resources
The Sustainable Learning Community: The University of New Hampshire
- University of New Hampshire (NH)
In this presentation, staff from the University of New Hampshire's University Office of Sustainability (UOS) -- the oldest endowed sustainability program in American higher education -- will share from their perspective ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Evaluating Fieldwork for Undergraduate Sustainability Education
- University of Alberta (AB)
Many undergraduate instructors consider fieldwork as central to courses in sustainability and environmental studies. Common goals of fieldwork include the development of general and subject-specific skills, opportunity for experiential and ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Engaging Students in Campus Sustainability Initiatives through Innovative Courses
- Loyola University Chicago (IL)
Universities that strive to make their campuses more sustainable face challenges of curriculum reform and engaging their students in sustainability initiatives. At Loyola University Chicago (LUC), we are meeting both ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Building Sustainability & Community in a Student-Led, Service-Learning Environment
- Truman State University (MO)
Often, there is a perceived divide between a campus and the greater community and an actual divide between university practices and sustainable ones. We seek to break down both barriers ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Campus Wide Academic Sustainability Initiative at Dalhousie University
- Dalhousie University (NS)
Global concern for environment and sustainability is growing and new ways of thinking are needed to create solutions to the challenges we face. The Dalhousie University College of Sustainability is ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Operations and Academics Collaboration for Sustainability on Campus
- British Columbia Institute of Technology (BC)
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is Canada's premier polytechnic institution. It operates out of five campuses in western Canada, and it is oriented towards meeting the needs ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Green, Across the Campus and Across the Curriculum
- Ball State University (IN)
- Eastern Iowa Community College District (IA)
- Grand Valley State University (MI)
- U.S. Green Building Council (DC)
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) supports the integration of green building and sustainability projects across higher education campuses and curriculum. With students and educators now living and working ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Everybody Counts! Students as Citizen Scientists: Teaching Sustainability at Seneca College, King Campus, Ontario, Canada
- Seneca Polytechnic (ON)
Today's environmental issues are more complex than ever before. The need to contribute to global solutions has empowered the individual in every home and in every community. Citizen Science ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Maximizing Student, Staff, and Faculty Synergies: The University of British Columbia SEEDS Program
- University of British Columbia (BC)
This presentation describes an award winning "greening the campus" program. SEEDS is the first academic program in Western Canada that brings together students, faculty, and staff to collaborate on developing ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Teaching Sustainability through an Interdisciplinary Learning Exchange
- Ithaca College (NY)
How do we integrate sustainability into our existing courses? An interdisciplinary learning project which integrates two traditional courses: Lifespan Developmental Psychology and Nutrition Across the Lifespan, will be presented. This ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Using GIS to Promote Sustainability
- University of Oklahoma (OK)
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have widespread applicability to many facets of the Sustainability world. In fact, GIS has its mid-1960's roots in the sustainability subfield of natural resources management ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Education for Sustainability and Designing for Significant Learning
- Ithaca College (NY)
Sustainability education and the design of significant learning experiences share fundamental principles of course design. Our presentation describes an integrated faculty workshop that is part of the Finger Lakes Project ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability and Furman's New Curriculum
- Furman University (SC)
Furman's Director of Sustainability and Environmental Education and its Provost will discuss various curricular initiatives developed by Furman University that make sustainability more integral to our learning environment. Furman ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainable Societies
- Environic Foundation International, Inc. (MD)
Developing Education for Sustainable Development that includes a balanced examination of social, economic and environmental issues is a challenge. The Environic Foundation International (EFI), in partnership with the United Nations ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Environmental Sustainability Cluster Course: Initiating Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Engaging Community, and Supporting Facilities Management
- University of Missouri, Kansas City (MO)
In the spring of 2008, the first environmental sustainability course offered at the University of Missouri Kansas City was a cluster course. Cluster courses are upper level, interdisciplinary, general education ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Restoring the Wellesley Campus Community: Landscape as Infrastructure and Learning Resource
- Wellesley College (MA)
- Haley & Aldrich, Inc. (MA)
- Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (MA)
Over the past decade, Wellesley College has executed two major projects that have addressed campus needs while providing substantial environmental benefit and educational opportunities through the living classroom of the ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Using a Class to Conduct a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory: Lessons from Macalester College
- Macalester College (MN)
During spring 2008, students in Macalester College's environmental studies senior seminar conducted a greenhouse gas emissions inventory of Macalester College as their class project. This project is the campus ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Teaching Sustainability Using an On-Farm Community Supported Agriculture framework
- New Mexico State University (NM)
An organic garden operated as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) venture at New Mexico State University (NMSU) was used as the framework for teaching sustainability concepts. The CSA model of ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Pacific University's B Street Permaculture Project
- Pacific University (OR)
There are pressing concerns related to the global dependence on fossil fuels due to limited supplies and the expanding production of greenhouse gases. As leaders in the global community, institutions ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Function, Damn It! A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Teaching Sustainability
- University of Nebraska at Omaha (NE)
In 2007, several faculty and staff members from UNO and the University of Nebraska Medical Center created and team-taught a class called "Sustainable Omaha?" The special offerings graduate and undergraduate ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Integrating Sustainability and Science in an Urban Infrastructure Course - Experience and Learning Outcomes
- Tulane University (LA)
In the fall of 2007, a course was developed on sustainable infrastructure in urban environments, and the course was taught in the following spring semester. Aimed mainly at undergraduate students ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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One Size Does Not Fit All: How Every School's Character can Define a Distinctive Curriculum for Sustainability
- Cadmus Group, Inc. (FL)
This paper will examine some of the paths to and virtues of diversity and difference in environmental education, and how this diversity enhances our common knowledge. In the quest for ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Running the Numbers: Enhancing Calculus through Education about Sustainability
- Ithaca College (NY)
We will give a brief overview along with specific examples on how to incorporate sustainability themes into a calculus class. With the widespread availability of data and the commonality of ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Breaking Sustainability Ground in Art and Design
- Savannah College of Art & Design (GA)
What has an Art and Design College to do with sustainability? The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) currently offers 32 Majors ranging from Advertising Design, Architecture, Fibers, Historic ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Current State of Sustainability in Business Education
- California State University, Sacramento (CA)
While evaluating our current undergraduate Marketing curriculum and considering the addition of courses or modules on sustainability, it was important to determine what other business schools were offering in their ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Campus Sustainability Films in a General Education Science Course
- Furman University (SC)
Making students aware of and peaking their interests in campus environmental and sustainability initiatives can be difficult, given students wide range of interests and competing demands for their time. I ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Experiential Learning: UNC's Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (BASE)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC)
The new Business Accelerator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (BASE) at the University of North Carolina provides an innovative experiential learning opportunity for students to work directly with sustainably-oriented businesses. BASE is ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability Across the Curriculum: Strategies for Change
- Auburn University (AL)
- Emory University (GA)
- St. Olaf College (MN)
- San Diego State University (CA)
- Santa Clara University (CA)
Curriculum change is one of the key components for helping colleges and universities create a more sustainable future. And yet, curriculum change remains challenging precisely because the curriculum is not ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Perspectives on Sustainability Curricula
- Oklahoma State University (OK)
- Unity Environmental University (ME)
- Global Council Science and the Environment (DC)
Interdisciplinary environmental programs have proliferated and flourished in higher educational institutions across the United States for four decades. Despite this long history and the large and growing number of programs ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Big Ideas and Faculty Learning Communities: A Strategy for Integrating Sustainability across the Curriculum
- Peninsula College (WA)
- Seattle University (WA)
- Evergreen State College, The (WA)
- University of Puget Sound (WA)
If sustainability perspectives and practices are to become part of college graduates' thinking, they must start appearing across the curriculum in ways that are meaningful for students. In the Puget ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability in Education Abroad
- Keene State College (NH)
- Living Routes, Inc. (MA)
- CIEE (ME)
International Education exposes students to the world. It also exposes the world to the environmental, economic, and social impacts of travel and program activities. Program decisions about transportation, accommodations, food ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability Education at the Edge: A Cohort Model for Doctoral Study
- Appalachian State University (NC)
- Prescott College (AZ)
The challenge for the field of Sustainability Education is how to develop and support "agents of change" who can profoundly impact and transform our educational systems to produce a more ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Doing Local Environmental History: Developing a Sense of Place and Ecological Citizenship
- Fashion Institute of Technology (NY)
- Ithaca College (NY)
Since the fall of 2005 a special partnership has been nurtured between the History of American Environmental Thought course and The History Center in Tompkins County (NY). Working in teams ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Sustainable Agriculture Education Association: Facilitating the Teaching and Learning of Sustainable Food and Farming Systems in Higher Education
- North Carolina State University (NC)
- University of California, Davis (CA)
Sustainable agriculture as an academic discipline is an emerging field. In the past five to ten years, numerous U.S. colleges and universities have formed courses and programs dedicated to ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Everyone Eats at This Table: Explorations of Ecoliteracy and Environmental Justice at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke
- University of North Carolina, Pembroke (NC)
Taking the necessity of developing sustainability curriculum at North American educational institutions as a given, how do faculty who have never taught this curriculum go about creating meaningful courses? How ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability Across the Curriculum at Antioch University New England: Lessons & Questions from the Field
- Antioch University, New England (NH)
Antioch University New England's stated purpose is to provide transformative education through scholarship, innovation, and community action for a just and sustainable society. This panel will explore how one ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability across the Curriculum - Elon University Faculty Scholars Program
- Elon University (NC)
The Sustainability Faculty Scholars program was developed to assist faculty in the incorporation of sustainability themes across the University curriculum. Faculty members apply for the program by proposing the incorporation ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Innovative Methods in Renewable Energy Education and Training and the Integration of Campus Sustainability at Cape Cod Community College
- Cape Cod Community College (MA)
Cape Cod Community College (CCCC) has a dynamic and vibrant environmental program that includes two degree and multiple certificate options, including three certificates in Clean Energy Technologies: Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability at Missouri State University: A Public Affair
- Missouri State University (MO)
Missouri State University has a State wide Mission of "Public Affairs". Over the past several years, that mission has been explored through a Public Affairs Conference and various themes. In ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Making Your Campus a Laboratory for Sustainability: Linking Operations and Curriculum
- Evergreen State College, The (WA)
How can you incorporate daily operations of your campus into a laboratory for learning opportunities for students? This presentation will emphasize easily transferable strategies, regardless of campus size and orientation ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Education for Ecocultural Sustainability: ENVS 410 The Campus as a Living, Learning Laboratory
- Western Michigan University (MI)
This paper reports on the details of a remarkable, seven-year curriculum experiment directed at learning how to see and understand our campus as an ecocultural system. Taking a systems-oriented, action ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Sustainable Process for Sustainability Curriculum Development
- Arizona State University (AZ)
Development of interdisciplinary curricula is always a complicated process, both conceptually and bureaucratically. Doing this work in a new field in a new School is particularly challenging. This presentation traces ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Ecotrail Design: Integrating Art, Nature and Sustainability
- Daemen University (NY)
In an interdisciplinary collaboration between a biologist and artist/designer at Daemen College, we have initiated a multi-year project to engage students in environmental science through the creation of a ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Rational Resource Management: The Case EARTH University, Costa Rica
- EARTH University
EARTH University, located on an 8,000 acre property in the lowlands of Costa Rica, Central America, is a private, international, university dedicated to education in the agricultural sciences and ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Undergraduate Management Education for Sustainability
- Furman University (SC)
Furman University's Department of Business and Accounting plays a significant role in the university's sustainability efforts through innovative curriculum development and engagement of the corporate community. Sustainability concepts ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Academics in Action: Bridging the Gap Between the Classroom and the Community
- Grand Valley State University (MI)
In his 1949 polemic, "The Land Ethic," Aldo Leopold notes that the conventional answer to the question of how to develop an environmental conscience/consciousness is "more education" however, he ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Green Research for Incorporating Data into the Classroom (GRIDc)
- North Carolina State University (NC)
North Carolina State University (NCSU), NCSU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education, the North Carolina Solar Center, and Pitt Community College are working ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Kanawha Project: Environmental Issues Across the Undergraduate Curriculum
- Ohio University (OH)
The overall goal of the Kanawha Project is to enhance the undergraduate curriculum by integrating environmental issues across disciplines. During the 2008-7 academic year the following activities took place on ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Building A MASS Movement: the Masters of Arts in Sustainability Studies at Ramapo College of NJ
- Ramapo College of New Jersey (NJ)
As Sustainability moves from a meandering stream to a roaring movement, it is important that we develop graduate programs that push development of the field and prepare leaders to implement ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Designing and Developing Service Learning Pedagogy in Support of Sustainability
- University of Florida (FL)
Service learning has become a recognized form of pedagogy in University graduate and undergraduate education. The term takes a variety of forms including structured internships, design and policy studios, law ...
- 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.