Outcome of a Seven-Year Journey: Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth and the Environment for a Sustainable Future

Wednesday 4:30pm-5:45pm TSU - Humphries: 118
Poster Session Part of Wednesday

Authors

Dave Gosselin, University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Anne Egger, Central Washington University
John Taber, EarthScope Consortium

Our new book, "Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth and the Environment for a Sustainable Future," presents some of the outcomes from the seven-year journey of the NSF-funded InTeGrate project, whose mission was to improve Earth literacy across the undergraduate curriculum and build a workforce prepared to tackle environmental and resource issues.

The five chapters in Part I describe the InTeGrate project as a whole, its guiding principles and major efforts, and overall measures of achievement. The seven chapters in Part II are written by authors of curricular materials, and describe modules and courses that engage students in investigating societal issues related to renewable energy; assessing hazards, vulnerability, and risk; regulating carbon emissions; the relationship between ecosystem services and water resources; global food security; major storms and community resilience; and the "critical zone" where rock meets life. The five chapters in Part III are written by leaders of model programs and showcase institutional change through programs that connect geoscience, engineering, and sustainability; integrate sustainability into a General Education curriculum; strengthen pathways through higher education in a large city; and foster collaboration across Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Collectively, the chapters in this book explicitly illustrate the intimate relationship between geoscience and sustainability that is often opaque. They showcase the work of faculty members, administrators and program directors, and researchers from a range of institution types who envisioned, instigated, and evaluated change in the way that sustainability is connected to the Earth and environmental sciences in their classrooms, programs, institutions, and beyond. The book is part of the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences book series published by Springer. More about the book and the full InTeGrate project (including curricular materials, model programs, assessment instruments, rubrics, and insights from members of the community) are on the InTeGrate website (http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate).