Sustainability in Higher Education: Beyond …
189
(a) The learner interacts with more ideas than those found in a typical academic
environment.
(b) The student (and learner) is given the opportunity to explore what sustainability
looks like for the City of Bristol as well as the University of Bristol and through
this they can:
(1) Identify similar challenges that the two stakeholders are facing.
(2) Identify similar bottom-up initiatives that were developed by the two stakeholders independently.
(3) Examine similar challenges at different scales.
(4) Learn about the interaction of the university and the city through policy
making, bottom-up initiatives.
(5) Explore different roles that people can adopt when striving to address a
challenge.
(c) The student is exposed to the theory behind holistic sustainability in an interactive way through the four weeks of the course and through the discussion that
will take place in the course.
(d) Through the above, develop and adopt the identity of the engaged citizen.
Learners are given information on how to join local initiatives, ways to contribute
and interact as well as spaces and events where they can engage with others. Additionally, and in order to give the student and the learner a sense of the bigger picture,
there are also challenges not strictly local to Bristol. This showcases the scale of
modern challenges and the need for collective action beyond the University, and the
City. By engaging with these case studies, as well as the rest of the course, learners
engage with how knowledge of sustainable development has been applied in different situations, the nature of the challenge, the approaches used to tackle it, and how
the different roles involved interact with each other. We also present them with more
personal reflections from the people involved: what motivates them, what difficulties they have faced personally and what helps them through these difficulties. The
case studies are compiled by stories from people who are promoting positive mental
health and happy communities to tackling local homelessness and working with large
corporations to reduce microplastics, and in doing so, hopefully, inspire the learner to
learn more or even become involved themselves. Instead of presenting our students
with a list of Sustainable Development Goals, we decided to use sustainability and
therefore, the sustainable development goals themselves, as a lens through which the
student is given the opportunity to closely examine small and large-scale challenges.
Starting from mental health and then moving on to Bristol specific and global specific
challenges, we take the student through a journey of personal, local and global sustainability. By focusing more on self-reflection, we give the student time to explore
different roles through which they can address modern day challenges. This course
is for anyone interested in living in a way which makes a difference in the world, in
ways both small and large. It gives the learner the chance to reflect on what they do
in their life already, as well as how they could make changes for the future. During
this course the learners have the opportunity to reflect on what makes a ‘happy’ and
189
(a) The learner interacts with more ideas than those found in a typical academic
environment.
(b) The student (and learner) is given the opportunity to explore what sustainability
looks like for the City of Bristol as well as the University of Bristol and through
this they can:
(1) Identify similar challenges that the two stakeholders are facing.
(2) Identify similar bottom-up initiatives that were developed by the two stakeholders independently.
(3) Examine similar challenges at different scales.
(4) Learn about the interaction of the university and the city through policy
making, bottom-up initiatives.
(5) Explore different roles that people can adopt when striving to address a
challenge.
(c) The student is exposed to the theory behind holistic sustainability in an interactive way through the four weeks of the course and through the discussion that
will take place in the course.
(d) Through the above, develop and adopt the identity of the engaged citizen.
Learners are given information on how to join local initiatives, ways to contribute
and interact as well as spaces and events where they can engage with others. Additionally, and in order to give the student and the learner a sense of the bigger picture,
there are also challenges not strictly local to Bristol. This showcases the scale of
modern challenges and the need for collective action beyond the University, and the
City. By engaging with these case studies, as well as the rest of the course, learners
engage with how knowledge of sustainable development has been applied in different situations, the nature of the challenge, the approaches used to tackle it, and how
the different roles involved interact with each other. We also present them with more
personal reflections from the people involved: what motivates them, what difficulties they have faced personally and what helps them through these difficulties. The
case studies are compiled by stories from people who are promoting positive mental
health and happy communities to tackling local homelessness and working with large
corporations to reduce microplastics, and in doing so, hopefully, inspire the learner to
learn more or even become involved themselves. Instead of presenting our students
with a list of Sustainable Development Goals, we decided to use sustainability and
therefore, the sustainable development goals themselves, as a lens through which the
student is given the opportunity to closely examine small and large-scale challenges.
Starting from mental health and then moving on to Bristol specific and global specific
challenges, we take the student through a journey of personal, local and global sustainability. By focusing more on self-reflection, we give the student time to explore
different roles through which they can address modern day challenges. This course
is for anyone interested in living in a way which makes a difference in the world, in
ways both small and large. It gives the learner the chance to reflect on what they do
in their life already, as well as how they could make changes for the future. During
this course the learners have the opportunity to reflect on what makes a ‘happy’ and