Brandeis University
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Sustainability is an inherently dynamic concept, because our understanding of potential harms to the well-being of both humans and nature are identified in large part through basic research in fields as diverse as climatology, toxicology, agronomy, and conservation biology. At its core though, and certainly within the context of designing a university curriculum, the call for a greater focus on sustainability requires a deeper integration of environmental science with economics and other human-centered disciplines, including history and even ethics. As such, sustainability-focused courses will be inherently integrative, including social, economic, and environmental dimensions, or will examine an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens. Sustainability-related courses may incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or module, or concentrate on a single sustainability principle or issue (e.g., climate change). The goal of sustainability education is to provide students, regardless of their courses of study, the knowledge and skills to help create a healthy economy, society, and environment. In order to determine whether or not a course has this goal in mind, it is useful to ask whether or not the given course will help students to achieve one or more of the following: Understand and be able to effectively communicate the concept of sustainability. Develop and use an ethical perspective in which they view themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world. Become aware of and explore the connections between their chosen course of study and sustainability. Develop technical skills or expertise necessary to implement sustainable solutions. Understand the way in which sustainable thinking decision-making contributes to the process of creating solutions for current and emerging social, environmental, and economic crises. Contribute practical solutions to real-world sustainability challenges. Synthesize understanding of social, economic, and environmental systems and reason holistically.

A student in the STARS experiential learning program has evaluated the courses given the definition of sustainability. The next step is to make this information more widely available before student registration for Fall 2011 classes.