Sustainability Essays

These essays were submitted by faculty in preparation for the Systems, Society, Sustainability and the Geosciences workshop in July 2012. Participants were asked to share their approaches to teaching sustainability in an interdisciplinary context and ideas for exploring opportunities for enhancing the integration of geoscience and sustainability.

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Teaching Sustainability Through History
Derek Larson, Saint Johns University
An academic essay page detailing how interdisciplinary environmental studies programs integrate historical context into sustainability education, emphasizing curriculum design, historical precedents in green building and resource management, and pedagogical strategies for teaching sustainability through history. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Value of Co-Teaching, Project-Based Learning, and Common Communication for Teaching Sustainability to an Interdisciplinary Class
Steven Burian, University of Utah
This academic essay page discusses interdisciplinary sustainability education, emphasizing co-teaching, project-based learning, and shared communication as key strategies, authored by an engineering educator reflecting on pedagogical successes and challenges. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Feeding the World - Teaching Sustainability in a Plant Biology Course
Susan Singer, Carleton College
This essay page from the InTeGrate project details how plant biology is taught through a sustainability lens at Carleton College, emphasizing interdisciplinary learning, food security, soil science integration, and long-term student projects analyzing agricultural sustainability and policy. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Productive sustainability discourse through insisting on diverse perspectives
Hitesh Soneji, City College of San Francisco
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the importance of fostering interdisciplinary sustainability education by intentionally incorporating diverse student perspectives and multiple disciplinary viewpoints to avoid groupthink and enrich discourse. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

How Should We Teach 'Sustainability Science'?
Tracey Holloway, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This webpage is an academic essay discussing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching sustainability science at the undergraduate level, emphasizing solutions-oriented thinking, systems dynamics, quantitative literacy, and course design strategies to engage students in sustainability challenges. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Demonstrating why sustainability is complex
Cailin Huyck Orr, Carleton College
This essay page from the InTeGrate project discusses the complexity of teaching sustainability, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches, adaptive management, and scenario planning through water resource case studies to help students grasp the multifaceted challenges of achieving sustainability. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Making Connections between Geoscience and Sustainability
Laura Rademacher, University of the Pacific
Essay page from an InTeGrate workshop discussing interdisciplinary strategies for integrating geoscience and sustainability in undergraduate education, emphasizing quantitative literacy, real-world applications, and student behavior analysis through fingerprint activities. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Sustainability in Geosciences in a Liberal Arts Curriculum
Jeff Walker, Vassar College
An academic essay page discussing the integration of sustainability into geoscience education within liberal arts colleges, emphasizing interdisciplinary teaching, systems thinking, waste management, and field-based learning to foster sustainability-conscious curricula. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Making Sustainability Visible
Thomas Beery, University of Minnesota-Duluth
This webpage is an educational essay discussing how sustainability decisions in outdoor education programs can be used to teach critical thinking and environmental behavior, emphasizing transparency in logistical choices like transportation to model sustainable practices for students. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Service Learning in Interdisciplinary Courses
Maureen Padden, McMaster University
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the integration of service learning in interdisciplinary sustainability courses, highlighting pedagogical challenges, student outcomes, and real-world application in higher education. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

The Waldo Canyon wildfire: A case study of the western urban-wilderness interface
Mari Lee, Colorado College
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the Waldo Canyon wildfire as a case study of urban-wilderness interface challenges in the western U.S., exploring themes of sustainability, forest management, climate stress, and community resilience within an interdisciplinary environmental science and policy context. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Sustainability in an Oceanography Course
Katryn Wiese, City College of San Francisco
A pedagogical essay page detailing how sustainability is integrated into an oceanography course through interdisciplinary case studies, local environmental data labs, and active learning strategies to foster student engagement and real-world application. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Teaching Sustainability in a Study Abroad Course
Lori Troxel, Vanderbilt University
An academic essay page detailing a structural engineering professor's interdisciplinary study abroad course on sustainable buildings in Northern Ireland, covering topics such as energy efficiency, retrofitting housing, tidal and wave energy, policy impacts from the Kyoto treaty, and challenges in teaching sustainability across disciplines. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Questions about application, theory, and engagement with sustainability
Mary Ann Cunningham, Vassar College
A faculty essay page from the InTeGrate project addressing challenges in sustainability education, including ideological resistance, the theory-practice divide, multidisciplinary integration, and institutional support gaps, with emphasis on pedagogical strategies and curriculum design in geoscience and geography. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Credibility as a Challenge in the Integration of Science and Sustainability
Holly Ewing, Bates College
An academic essay page discussing the challenge of maintaining scientific credibility when integrating science with sustainability in education, emphasizing the importance of teaching scientific uncertainty and context within interdisciplinary environmental studies. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

The Relevance of Place and Sense of Place to Sustainability
Steven Semken, Arizona State University Campus Immersion
This academic essay page explores the role of place-based education in promoting environmental and cultural sustainability, emphasizing how sense of place fosters ecological integrity and community attachment in contested landscapes, with applications in geoscience and interdisciplinary teaching. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Approach and Challenges to a General Undergraduate Sustainability Science Course
Lisa M.B. Harrington, Kansas State University, Geography I teach a mid- to upper-division course on sustainability, which I introduced as "Sustainability Science," oriented around the recommendation that ...

One economist's approach to interdisciplinary teaching and exploration of sustainability
Morris Coats, Nicholls State University
An essay page from the InTeGrate project, authored by economist Morris Coats, discussing interdisciplinary teaching methods that integrate economic principles—such as scarcity, institutional incentives, and behavioral analysis—with sustainability education, emphasizing connections to geoscience, societal systems, and resource management. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Sustainability and Understanding Time
Mary Savina, Carleton College
Sustainability and Understanding Time is an academic essay page from the InTeGrate collection that explores how geoscience education can reframe sustainability by emphasizing deep time, paleoclimate analysis, and historical context to better understand human impacts on natural systems and inform future societal resilience. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Sustainability: Teaching for a Moving Target
Julie Maxson, Metropolitan State University
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the challenges and evolution of teaching sustainability in higher education, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches, climate change impacts, and the need for solution-oriented, systems-based curricula amid institutional resistance to environmental topics. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.