University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Courses fulfilling the University's "environment theme" requirement for undergraduate education are sustainability-focused course offerings. The following is a description of the environment theme objectives and criteria: Environmental issues are complex. Finding solutions to these environmental issues will have students vigorously debating the myriad of solutions; weighing the costs with the benefits and tradeoffs among alternative policies and practices; exploring the roles of science and technology; learning to become involved, informed, and constructive citizens after graduation. Issues such as sustainability and the ethics of intergenerational equity must be weighed against meeting current needs and wants. The pursuit of solutions to environmental issues is a highly synthetic and interdisciplinary endeavor. Therefore, courses that fulfill this Theme need to connect students, in explicit ways, to solving problems. A broad array of disciplines, from physical and biological sciences, to the social sciences and humanities need to be integrated into the proposed solutions, which must be based on science, but which will be implemented and sustained only if they are consistent with the ethics and values of society. Courses must meet these criteria: -The course raises environmental issues of major significance. -The course gives explicit attention to interrelationships between the natural environment and human society. -The course introduces the underlying scientific principles behind the environmental issues being examined -Students explore the limitations of technologies and the constraints of science on the public policy issues being considered. -Students learn how to identify and evaluate credible information concerning the environment. -Students demonstrate an understanding that solutions to environmental problems will only be sustained if they are consistent with the ethics and values of society.

A search was conducted of our Electronic Course Approval System (ECAS). Any course that meets the liberal education environment theme requirement was classified as sustainability-focused. Courses not fulfilling this requirement but covering content on one or more of the following terms (as identified through a key word search) were considered to be sustainability-related courses: climate, air, water, biodiversity, efficiency, energy, renewable, photovoltaic, hydro, smart grid, green, biomass, biofuel, soil, poverty, forestry, and life cycle cost. Courses identified through the key word search were individually reviewed to ensure they were appropriately classified as sustainability-related.

This information only pertains to undergraduate education. A course search tool is also published on the Institute on the Environment's Sustainability Education site http://www.susteducation.umn.edu/resources/sustainability-course-search/