University of Wisconsin Stout | Wisconsin's Polytechnic University

Infusing Sustainability into the Curriculum

May 25-26, 2010
University of Wisconsin-Stout

Have you been meaning to introduce pedagogical innovation or expanded content into your courses?  Need time to think about better preparing students for the pressing, real-world challenges they will encounter?  How about incorporating nature, environmental literacy and sustainability issues?

This workshop will explore how we as teachers can meaningfully integrate the environment—broadly defined—into our classrooms. Participants will design new assignments or new units for a current course, or even complete new courses.

How can you apply this to your curriculum?

• Trace the environmental history of the industrial revolution in a history class
  
  
• Introduce eco-criticism or invite students to do on-site nature writing in an English course
  
  
• Integrate environmental remediation, real estate development of brownfields or environmental aspects of supply chain management into business courses
  
  
• Add a discussion of global warming to a public policy or law class
  
  
• Design surveys of environmental values in a social science or an ethics class
  
  

What does the workshop cover?

• The presentations, discussions, outdoor time and workshop materials highlight connections among environmental dimensions of the surrounding area, the campus and broader national and international issues of sustainability.
  
  
• Faculty facilitators will lead discussions about sustainability, the local ecosystem and the various dimensions of these issues (e.g., scientific, political, economic, social, philosophical and ethical)
  
  
• Participants will read and discuss articles from various disciplines such as biology, public health, human development and theology
  
  
• Resource experts will present an overview of campus environmental efforts and contextual information from the arenas of ecology, business and environmental justice and will give an overview of campus environmental efforts
  
  
• A panel of faculty will discuss their experiences teaching sustainability, and we will engage the topic of sustainability through experiential learning activities as well