Overall Rating Bronze - expired
Overall Score 40.43
Liaison Andreas Wolfram
Submission Date Jan. 10, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Ringling College of Art and Design
ER-13: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 2.00 David Jackson
Assoc. VP for Academic Affairs
Academic Affairs
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution conducted a sustainability literacy assessment?:
Yes

Did the assessment include a baseline evaluation of students and then a follow-up evaluation of the same cohort?:
No

A copy of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment:
A copy of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment :

The four components of Sustainability that we are assessing are:

1) Awareness of current Environmental Issues,
2) Scientific and quantitative reasoning
3) Basic understanding of Natural Capital and the value of Nature’s services to the
economy and the environment.
4) Understanding of systems thinking and modeling.
And then we rate the students as to their ability to demonstrate and their willingness to use and apply the aforementioned criteria to their work. Students are rated as Limited, Adequate or Strong in each of the categories.


A brief description of how the assessment was developed:

The assessment topics were developed in conversation/discussion among the faculty of Environmental Studies, on-line reviews of assessment methods used at other institutions, discussion within the Liberal Arts program, presentation to Academic Affairs Committee, presentation to the Sustainability Committee, presentation to the full faculty, discussion with students regarding sustainability, and discussion amongst the 5 individual in Academic Affairs documenting the curricular portion of STARS.


A brief description of how the assessment was administered:

We use a holistic approach involving projects, presentations, research, journals, term papers, tests, and in-class discussions. We want to know if students are using sustainability precepts in their work, their thinking and their life – not just their ability to select a correct answer on an evaluation form.


A brief summary of results from the assessment:

The four components of Sustainability that we are assessing are:

1) Awareness of current Environmental Issues,
2) Scientific and quantitative reasoning
3) Basic understanding of Natural Capital and the value of Nature’s services to the
economy and the environment.
4) Understanding of systems thinking and modeling.

In assessment, we rate the students as to their ability to demonstrate and their willingness to use and apply the aforementioned criteria to their work. Students are rated as Limited, Adequate or Strong in each of the criteria. The results from the categories are then averaged over the criteria to determine a score for Sustainability.

Skill Level LIMITED ADEQUATE STRONG

Category:

Awareness of current
Environmental issues 28 (17.6%) 68 (42.8%) 63 (39.6%)

NASAD 14 Scientific and
quantitative reasoning 35 (22%) 72 (45.3%) 52 (32.7%)

Basic understanding of
Natural Capital and the value 25 (16%) 67 (42%) 67 (42%)
of Nature’s services to the
economy and the environment.

Understanding of
systems thinking and modeling. 46 (29%) 66 (41.5%) 47 (29.5%)

________________________________________________________________________

Sustainability 34 (21.4%) 68 (42.8%) 57 (35.8%)


The website URL where information about the literacy assessment is available:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.