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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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.

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.

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.

Historicizing Water and Development
Abigail Schade, Davidson College
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the historical perspectives on water and development, emphasizing how human perceptions and valuation of freshwater resources shape sustainability and economic development discourse, particularly within undergraduate education and systems thinking. 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 Hanford Reach
Tracy Lai, Seattle Central College
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the interdisciplinary challenges of sustainability at Hanford Reach, emphasizing the intersection of ecological science, nuclear waste management, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice within a Pacific Northwest historical 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.

Integrating sustainability in its social context
Pablo Toral, Beloit College
An academic essay page from the InTeGrate project discussing interdisciplinary integration of sustainability within social contexts, emphasizing peer learning across disciplines like political science, economics, and ethics in environmental studies 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.

Making Connections between Geoscience and Sustainability
Laura Rademacher, Carleton College
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: The Key To Student Engagement
Ben Fackler-Adams, Skagit Valley College
This essay page presents interdisciplinary teaching strategies for integrating sustainability into geoscience and chemistry education, emphasizing student engagement through real-world relevance, cognitive learning principles, and hands-on activities across courses like environmental geology and oceanography. 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.

Instilling a sense of sustainability in a large introductory course
Brooke Crowley, University of Cincinnati-Main Campus
This webpage is an academic essay detailing strategies for integrating sustainability into a large interdisciplinary introductory course, "Humans and Nature: Living in the Anthropocene," co-taught in Geology and Anthropology, emphasizing real-world applications, student engagement, stewardship, ecological footprint analysis, and community impact. 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.

Using Small Team Presentations to Examine Energy Production and Energy Utilization
Tom Termes, Black Hills State University
This webpage is an educational essay detailing a teaching activity where small student teams research and present on U.S. energy production and utilization topics to foster consensus on unsustainable energy trajectories, part of the InTeGrate project’s sustainability pedagogy collection. 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.

Modeling Interdisciplinarity
Ed Barbanell, University of Utah
This webpage is an academic essay discussing the importance of modeling interdisciplinary collaboration in sustainability education, emphasizing how faculty from disparate fields—such as philosophy and engineering—can co-teach effectively by building professional relationships and demonstrating respectful dialogue, thereby preparing students for complex, real-world problem-solving. 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.

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.

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.

Economics, Sustainability and Teaching Interactive Approach
Nelson Altamirano, National University
This essay page discusses integrating geosciences into economics education through interactive, game-based learning to teach sustainability, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches for business students and providing a downloadable PDF of the full text. 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.

Geoscience is by its nature interdisciplinary
David Kobilka, Central Lakes College-Brainerd
This webpage is an educational essay discussing how geoscience, particularly in environmental contexts, is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating chemistry, physics, biology, and social sciences, with a focus on teaching methods, current event integration, and sustainability education in undergraduate courses. 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 Mining Activity
Stephen Kissin, Lakehead University
This webpage is an academic essay discussing sustainability in mining activities, focusing on environmental, economic, and social dimensions, with a case study on northwestern Ontario, and highlighting Lakehead University's initiative to establish a multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence in Mineral Exploration and Sustainable Mining Development. 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 imperative for chemists to teach about sustainability
Scott Cummings, Kenyon College
This essay page argues that chemistry education must integrate sustainability due to shifting student interests, career demands, and global challenges, emphasizing chemistry's role in clean energy, pollution remediation, and green technologies while addressing curriculum reform challenges and resources. 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: Students & Professors
Bill Stigliani, University of Northern Iowa
This webpage is an academic essay detailing pedagogical strategies for teaching sustainability, emphasizing systems thinking, interdisciplinary integration, student-led envisioning of sustainable futures, and faculty development programs to embed sustainability across university 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.