Sustainability Education and Student Learning
at the University of British Columbia
Kshamta Hunter
Teaching and Learning Office
UBC Sustainability Initiative (USI)
AASHE 2012
The UBC Plan: Place & Promise
Commitment to create “an exceptional learning environment”
that “advances a civil and sustainable society”
The USI
• Created in March 2010
• Sustainability is one of 9 high level
strategies at UBC, within “Place and
Promise”
• USI is NOT a faculty or central approach
similar to other universities
• Based on a funded model of a central
group and 3 offices
• Integration of the Operational and
Teaching and Learning units
The USI
Agent of
Change
Academic
Operational
Campus as
Living
Laboratory
(CLL)
USI Teaching and Learning Office
Our mandate:
To educate the next
generation of
sustainability leaders by
transforming and
coordinating
undergraduate and
graduate sustainability
education at UBC.
www.sustain.ubc.ca/teaching-learning
Coordination Activities:
Outreach, support, programs, reporting
Support
• Academic Advisors
advance sustainability education
in all faculties
• Student Groups Networking
opportunity for student groups to
connect, collaborate and learn
about resources
• Faculty CoP
sustainability education
community of practice with CTLT
Outreach
•Sustainability Education Resource
Centre
located in CIRS, Student Sustainability
Advisor mentors students
•Website Management
including a database of >480 courses
•Sustainability Education News
E-newsletter (>550 recipients)
Course
categorization
Feedback from
instructors
Organized by
Faculty/School
Course details,
link to
registration
Programs
•Sustainability Ambassadors
undergraduate peer program
•UBC Reads Sustainability
co-curricular program aimed at
UBC students in all disciplines
•Greenest City Scholars Program
graduate student internship
with the City of Vancouver
Reporting
•Reporting and Assessment
ASSHE’s STARS, Internal reporting
Transforming sustainability education across
the university
Goal: Every UBC student, regardless of their degree
program, should have the option to study
sustainability via a pathway (for example, a minor)
Teaching & Learning: Context & Challenge
• Context:
– Diverse array of sustainability course offerings (especially in
upper years), but few programs and minors that offer
meaningfully connected courses
• Challenge:
– Sustainability Academic Strategy (SAS), the mid-level plan for
sustainability at UBC, expresses the following commitment:
Each student, regardless of their degree program, should have
access to an education in sustainability via a “sustainability
learning pathway” (up to a minor)
Spotlight Program and Fellowship Program
Three years of each program funded.
•Spotlight:
Competitive program to fund instructors to
improve the sustainability content and/or
delivery of an existing course
• Fellowship:
Brings together faculty members from
across campus to envision how to
advance sustainability education at UBC
Transforming Sustainability Education at UBC: Desired
Student Attributes and Pathways for Implementation
UBC Sustainability
Education Framework:
Four key overarching student
attributes to be fostered through
sustainability curriculum
STUDENT SUSTAINABILITY ATTRIBUTES
Holistic Systems
Thinking
Sustainability depends on, and
aspires to, a purposeful,
equitable and harmonious
integration of human and
natural systems.
Sustainability
Knowledge
Awareness &
Integration
Sustainability depends on
comprehensive knowledge
within one’s area of study.
Acting for Positive
Change
Sustainability requires students
to be aware of their own
constructing patterns and
processes: how their context
In addition, sustainability
knowledge requires students to informs their personal
perspectives and their
gain proficiency in the
Holistic, ecological or
underlying ideas and principles integration of new information.
synergistic thinking provides
of sustainability, and in the
means and methods to see,
Sustainability also requires
evaluation of different
articulate and qualitatively and sustainability models and
students to think and act in
quantitatively measure how
new ways to solve complex,
paradigms.
human and natural systems
integrative problems through
Sustainability knowledge also
work and interact.
collaboration between
requires students to understand
disciplines. Collaboration
contemporary sustainability
Holistic systems thinking also
demands an awareness of, and
issues, particularly those which
requires a capacity for synthesis
respect for, different
relate to their own area of
and for negotiating solutions to
disciplinary values, perspectives
study.
complex problems.
and knowledge.
A sustainability graduate has a
personal value system that
inspires action and embraces
the individual’s capacity to
create change.
Example Learning Outcomes:
Example Learning Outcomes:
Example Learning Outcomes:
Example Learning Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate a capacity to
appreciate that all actions have
consequences within, between
and among systems
1. Demonstrate an ability to
critically evaluate competing
sustainability models and
paradigms
1. Appreciate that sustainability
demands participation from all
disciplines and contributions
from society
1. Demonstrate skills and
strategies to enter into dialog
and create persuasive
arguments relating to
sustainability
Committed to acting on
personal beliefs but is flexible
and open to critical assessment
and modification of those
beliefs. They also appreciate
that collaborative and active
engagement with communities
leads to enriched creative
problem solving, as well as and
the ongoing development of
change agent skills.
Pathways Model
Key elements:
1.“Book End” courses: “SUST 101” and Sustainability leadership capstone
2.Well-connected courses which together integrate all the attributes
Year 1
Beyond the
classroom
Disciplinebased
Themebased
1
1
3
2
Year 2
Holistic Systems
Thinking
2
2
4
SUST 101:
Introduction to
sustainability ideas
and principals,
models and
contemporary
issues. The course
could contain a
component
mentored or led by
a senior students.
Year 3
3
Year 4
4
Sustainability-oriented student immersive
experience outside the university, locally or globally
1
2
2
3
Courses within an existing program leading to
an understanding of ones discipline through a
sustainability lens.
Courses based on a theme such as “water”
taken inside or outside the student’s program of
study. Ideally would include some case study
analysis of the thematic issue.
Sustainability Knowledge
3
Awareness & Integration
4
1
2
3
4
Leadership course:
Students explore &
reflect on
attainment of
sustainability
attributes during
their learning
pathway.
Opportunity for
mentoring
undergraduates.
Acting for Positive Change
Looking forward….
• Continue to work with faculties to develop discipline-based sustainability
learning pathways (e.g. Biology Program)
• Encourage and support the development of cross-cutting pathways (e.g. a
theme-based pathway around water)
• Develop the 4th year capstone sustainability leadership course (2nd
pathway bookend)
• Strengthen our coordination and student engagement activities (e.g.
Sustainability Ambassadors Program, networking with academic advisors
across campus)
Thank you!
kshamta.hunter@ubc.ca