Teaching about Teaching Sustainability
David Shapiro, Cascadia Community College
This course combines an in-class activity and a service-learning option. Students familiarize themselves with the dynamic behind a particular kind of human induced environmental challenge and then develop a lesson plan to teach the dynamic to younger students in a classroom setting.

Finding the Personal Voice of Sustainability
Kevin Saari
This is an acting exercise that could be used with theater students, or any course in which the instructor wishes the students to explore a more personal connection to sustainability and environmental concerns. ...

Global Change Biology Service-Learning Project
Course taught by Dr. Phil Camill, Biology Department, Carleton College. Example compiled by Suzanne Savanick, Science Education Resource Center.
The class engaged in a service learning project to craft a draft sustainability vision for Carleton. The students worked in teams of 3-4 students and the statements that each of the teams developed were shared with the Environment and Technology Studies Program (ENTS) and the Carleton Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC).

Engaging Campus Conversations about Climate Action
Nicky Phear, The University of Montana-Missoula
Campus Climate Conversations are designed to be both educational and "deliberative," meaning students, staff, and faculty interact with one another in small groups to share views and ideas about climate action strategies. This activity is structured to enhance education and engagement, and to generate collaborative climate action strategies.

Geoscience education research project
Karen Kortz, Community College of Rhode Island
Students complete a scientific research project including asking a question, developing methods, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating results. The research question begins "What ...

Teaching geologic time and rates of landscape evolution with dice
Kate Ruhl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Landscape evolution provides a convenient framework for understanding geologic time and rates because students can observe how processes like erosion and deposition shape their surroundings. In this example, students build 3-D sandbox models based on topographic maps and design and stage a "virtual adventure race." Sandbox landscapes are used to illustrate erosional processes,while local examples are used to discuss landscapes as transient or steady over different time- and length scales. Dice experiments illustrate radioactive decay and the shape of the age equation curve, and 14C dating, geochronology and thermochronology are introduced as "stopwatches" that start when a plant dies, a crystal forms, or a rock nears the surface and cools to a certain temperature. The sandbox model and thermochronometer "stopwatches" are combined to measure erosion rates and rates of landscape change. Ultimately, model rates (cm/hour) calculated from stopwatch times on the order of seconds can be related to geologic rates (km/My) calculated from real million-year-old samples.

Syllabus Quiz
Karin Kirk, Freelance Science Writer and Geoscientist
This quiz helps students make sure they understand the important policies of the course before they embark into the course. Because students in online courses need to digest all of the course rules by reading ...

Learning About Thinking and Thinking About Learning
Karl Wirth, Macalester College
A document about learning provides background information for classroom activities to help students be more intentional about their thinking and learning

Using Art to Teach Environmental Responsibility
Kevin Saari
In this activity, students will use art to consider the effects of industrial culture on the environment and envision how to create a more positive and sustainable future. The students will create art works based ...

ConcepTests
David McConnell, North Carolina State University
ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions that focus on one key concept of an instructor's learning goals for a lesson. When coupled with student interaction through peer instruction, ConcepTests represent a rapid method of formative assessment of student understanding.