New Mexico State University
IN-1: Sustainability Course Designation

NMSU still uses the "Focused" and "Related" method to determine sustainability classes. Sustainability-focused courses concentrate on the concept of sustainability, including its socio-cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions, or examine an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens. To be considered sustainability-focused, the course should include three or more of the sustainability educational objectives listed below (please put the leaf in your course materials). Sustainability-related courses incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or module, or concentrate on a single sustainability principle or issue. To be considered sustainability-related, a course should include one or more of the sustainability educational objectives listed below (please put the leaf in your department and course materials). Sustainability Educational Objectives: In order to determine whether or not a course has this goal in mind, it is useful to ask whether or not a 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 explain how sustainability relates to their lives and values, and how their actions impact issues of sustainability. - Become aware of and explain how economy, society, culture, energy, and the environment are interrelated, making connections between their chosen course of study and sustainability. - Develop technical skills or expertise necessary to implement sustainable solutions. - Explain the ways in which sustainable thinking and decision-making contributes to the process of creating solutions for current and emerging social, environmental, and economic crises. - Apply concepts of sustainability locally (e.g. to change daily habits and consumption patterns) and globally by engaging in the challenges and solutions of sustainability in a world context. - Synthesize understanding of the interconnections among social, cultural, economic, energy, and environmental systems and reason holistically Sustainably-focused and Sustainability-related classes typically include one or more of the following topics: - Technical: learning processes for sustainable actions (e.g., analytical tools, practical training, experimentation with energy systems and materials). - Cultural and Human Ecology: learning about cultures around the world and connecting globally to benefit societies around the world (e.g., ethics; family systems and community organizations and their relationship to food production, water issues, and sustainable use of renewable and nonrenewable cultural and natural resources). - Management: learning management skills related to sustainability (e.g., leadership skills, innovative technology and systems thinking) - Integration of multiple skills: using interdisciplinary skills learned from various departments across the college (e.g., integrating natural and social sciences, analytical methods, and critical reasoning skills to evaluate renewable and nonrenewable resource issues) - Economics and Sustainable Development: all layers of sustainability must include the economics of keeping environmental systems alive (e.g., theoretical environmental, ecological, and natural resource economics that teaches students cost-benefit and financial analysis including environmental impacts and issues in the analysis). - Biological and Environmental Systems (e.g., development of models that explain maintenance and loss of biodiversity and using that knowledge for sustainable management and conservation). Classes with a sustainability focused or related listing are signified by a green leaf next to the class in the online catalogue.

http://greening.nmsu.edu/sustainability-program-resources/definitions-of-sustinable-focused-and-related-courses-at-nmsu/