How Do You Teach Undergraduate University Students …
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facturers, transporters, servers, preparers, and waste haulers. A well-done homework
assignment will require students to understand that food production of even a single
ingredient requires understanding the interplay of sustainable development goals 1,
2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Exercises like this are designed to train
students to think in an integrated and synthetic framework (“think sustainability”).
They become critical thinkers and learn to apply a holistic approach to any consumable product or energy choice from cradle to grave with equal attention to issues
brought to light by the UN SDGs: equity, gender, climate change, life on land, etc.
4 Year 2. ESS 201. Environmental Problem
Analysis—“Analyze Sustainability”
Following exposure to the breadth of the UN SDGs in the introductory course, students enroll in ESS 201 whereby they begin to utilize the integrated thinking developed in ESS 110 to engage in analysis of contemporary environmental problems.
This course recognizes that the first step in tackling any complex, global challenge
involves a detailed analysis of the issue at hand in order to understand the often
compounding causes, impacted systems, and interests involved. Students learn how
to find and evaluate robust information, question and interrogate taken-for-granted
assumptions and ideas, and integrate diverse perspectives in order to conduct a comprehensive analysis of three “wicked” environmental problems (Balint et al. 2011).
As students develop skills around the evaluation of information sources and the
effective communication of research, they are tasked with the interrogation of the
root causes, social and political influences, ecological contexts, and confounding
variables that surround issues of focus.
Of central importance in this course is the idea that no environmental problem can
be analyzed fully in a siloed fashion, and that effective solutions to these problems
are only possible once a comprehensive analysis that has considered all three pillars
of sustainability is complete. Not only must one think sustainably, but they must be
able to gather and interpret information from natural science, social science, and the
humanities in order to grasp the intricacies that surround sustainable development
problems. The last third of this class is designed by student participants who are
responsible for selecting a wicked environmental challenge, constructing an outline
of the dimensions of the problems, procuring information sources, and facilitating
the discussion and activities around such analysis. As each student develops a proposal for this final unit, they must demonstrate how their proposal provides adequate
opportunity to explore the proposed topics through the lens of each central sustainability pillar. One recent topic selected focused on the problem of unsustainable
urban growth and the need for sustainable cities, requiring students to analyze limits
to ecological capacity, social institutions and structures of power and injustice, and
macro-economic systems that might incentivize renewable technologies.
73
facturers, transporters, servers, preparers, and waste haulers. A well-done homework
assignment will require students to understand that food production of even a single
ingredient requires understanding the interplay of sustainable development goals 1,
2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Exercises like this are designed to train
students to think in an integrated and synthetic framework (“think sustainability”).
They become critical thinkers and learn to apply a holistic approach to any consumable product or energy choice from cradle to grave with equal attention to issues
brought to light by the UN SDGs: equity, gender, climate change, life on land, etc.
4 Year 2. ESS 201. Environmental Problem
Analysis—“Analyze Sustainability”
Following exposure to the breadth of the UN SDGs in the introductory course, students enroll in ESS 201 whereby they begin to utilize the integrated thinking developed in ESS 110 to engage in analysis of contemporary environmental problems.
This course recognizes that the first step in tackling any complex, global challenge
involves a detailed analysis of the issue at hand in order to understand the often
compounding causes, impacted systems, and interests involved. Students learn how
to find and evaluate robust information, question and interrogate taken-for-granted
assumptions and ideas, and integrate diverse perspectives in order to conduct a comprehensive analysis of three “wicked” environmental problems (Balint et al. 2011).
As students develop skills around the evaluation of information sources and the
effective communication of research, they are tasked with the interrogation of the
root causes, social and political influences, ecological contexts, and confounding
variables that surround issues of focus.
Of central importance in this course is the idea that no environmental problem can
be analyzed fully in a siloed fashion, and that effective solutions to these problems
are only possible once a comprehensive analysis that has considered all three pillars
of sustainability is complete. Not only must one think sustainably, but they must be
able to gather and interpret information from natural science, social science, and the
humanities in order to grasp the intricacies that surround sustainable development
problems. The last third of this class is designed by student participants who are
responsible for selecting a wicked environmental challenge, constructing an outline
of the dimensions of the problems, procuring information sources, and facilitating
the discussion and activities around such analysis. As each student develops a proposal for this final unit, they must demonstrate how their proposal provides adequate
opportunity to explore the proposed topics through the lens of each central sustainability pillar. One recent topic selected focused on the problem of unsustainable
urban growth and the need for sustainable cities, requiring students to analyze limits
to ecological capacity, social institutions and structures of power and injustice, and
macro-economic systems that might incentivize renewable technologies.