Integrating Sustainability into Courses

As part of the sustainability project we are working on helping faculty integrate sustainability into their courses.  There are quite a few examples of how to develop sustainability-based activities, but not very much on integration.  I decided to start with BIOL 321 (bryology) where there is lots of content that can easily be tweaked to enhance aspects of sustainability.  The approach I took is below and I developed it in a table format (work in progress).

Integrating Sustainability into a Course (Biology 321)

1.  Identify Big Ideas:
(a)  Definition of Sustainability
(b)  Global Issues that relate to course content
(c)  Regional and/or Local Issues that relate to course (opportunity for CSL projects)
(d)  Course specific Ideas that relate to sustainability (Roles/uses of Bryophytes, Importance of Herbaria and Collections, etc)
(e)  Sustainability Focused Activity
(f)  Communicating Sustainability

2.  Outline Topics that relate to the Big ideas and develop Learning Objectives that support intended competencies.

3.  Plan modes of Delivery (Activities, Discussions, Lecture, etc).  Identify areas of overlap.

4.  Identify the Sustainability Attributes and Pillar(s) addressed in each category. When chart is complete assess Attributes coverage.

5.  Integrate Learning Objectives in with other course learning objectives.

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