About

The Integrating Sustainability into Undergraduate Programs project considers how curriculum offerings at the University of Waterloo could be adapted to allow all students to develop foundational and discipline-specific understanding of sustainability. This toolkit of resources and supports is a major deliverable of the project and will continue to be maintained by the project team. This is a Teaching Innovation Incubator project led by the Sustainability Office. Consult the Teaching Innovation Incubator’s website to learn more about this specific project and how the Incubator is leading other large-scale, transformative teaching and learning projects.

The Sustainability Curriculum Integration Working Group developed a flexible framework through which environmental sustainability knowledge, skills, and values can be integrated into any program of study as they are relevant. The Working Group also identified and began development of processes and tools to support program administrators, chairs, instructors, and central support units to utilize the framework.

This work was informed by best practices for sustainability curriculum integration and opportunities for this work as identified in literature review, Canadian and international peer scans, student surveys, and consultations across campus. Outcomes also include 11 recommendations drafted for phase 2 of this project, from S2024 to S2025, and beyond, many of which are already underway. These recommendations cover the toolkit and support structure, community building, and executive and systems support.

If you would like to know more about the project that led to the development of this toolkit, it’s research, process, and recommendations, please see the phase 1 final report.

University of Waterloo graduates will need core skills and discipline-specific knowledge of climate change and sustainability if they are to be global citizens prepared to thrive in an age of rapid, global sustainability change. While there is existing leadership across many faculties and programs, many students do not have these skills, knowledge, and values woven through their program of study. There have been champions across many parts of the campus leading discussions about how to integrate sustainability across their specific discipline(s), sometimes with strong successes, however, there has been limited institutional support, guidance, or coordination to date on how to do so. This project considers how curriculum offerings at the University of Waterloo could be adapted to allow all students to develop foundational and discipline-specific understanding of sustainability.

There are two phases of this work. In the first phase (W2023-W2024), the Sustainability Curriculum Integration Working Group (“the Working Group”) developed a flexible framework through which environmental sustainability knowledge, skills, and values can be integrated into any program of study as they are relevant. The Working Group also identified and began development of processes and tools to support program administrators, chairs, instructors, and central support units to utilize the framework. These outputs may be adaptable to support other institution-wide initiatives where the University of Waterloo recognizes a need for foundational understanding of global issues (e.g., Indigenization, anti-racism, etc.).

To understand the Canadian and global landscape and best practices for sustainability curriculum integration, research methods included a literature review and peer scan. Consultations on campus included interviews with faculty and staff across all six faculties and several academic support units and a student survey. This research strongly supported including flexibility in the framework and throughout the process of integrating sustainability across curriculum, to allow for different perspectives. Faculty expertise, burnout, time constraints, and already full programs were identified as barriers to overcome, and experiential learning, work experience or co-op, and communities of practice were identified as opportunities for this work. Consultations also saw case studies as a valuable resource to support integration efforts. This research revealed strong support for this work in departments already considering sustainability, areas of industry and professions already beginning to look for these skills, changing accreditation requirements, and student perspectives of sustainability affecting their careers. Students indicated a strong interest in learning about sustainability, particularly in applied and experiential learning opportunities as they believe it will be relevant to their careers. Lastly this research clearly demonstrated that this work will be ongoing, tools and resources to support faculty are critical, and an integrated approach will be most relevant for students, faculty, and future career paths.

Research informed the development of a five-step flexible framework through which environmental sustainability can be integrated into any program of study, iterated based on feedback from groups across campus. The 5 steps – understand, connect, integrate, evaluate, and adapt and grow – demonstrate and align with iterative, cyclical processes of curriculum development. As supported by groups across campus, the framework is non-prescriptive and allows departments to approach sustainability in their own discipline while offering support and guidance on how to approach the challenging topic. The framework has received very positive feedback across campus.

Phase 1 also saw the creation of 11 recommendations for phase 2 (S2024-S2025) and beyond, listed below, some of which are already underway. These recommendations cover the toolkit and support structure, community building, and executive and systems support. This includes several deliverables that are already committed to as part of phase 2, including the official launch of the toolkit of resources, creating a community of practice, and developing student engagement opportunities. Additional recommendations to consider for phase 2 include workshops, teaching awards, grants, and sustainability curriculum identification systems. Recommendations reaching beyond this project and phase 2 include reconsidering support for interdisciplinary work, incentives for faculty, and senior communications on sustainability in curriculum.

1. Develop and create a public toolkit of resources that are available to help departments and faculty members looking to integrate sustainability topics into curriculum.
2. Identify and build a support structure of Academic Support Units (ASUs) that can assist with the toolkit and support departments integrating sustainability into their program(s).
3. Expand financial resources to assist with departmental implementation.
4. Explore flexible co-curricular pathways for encouraging student participation.
5. Establish an ongoing community of practice to exchange peer support.
6. Pilot workshops and other activities within CoP during phase 2.
7. Consider ways to strengthen ongoing collaboration and relationship building between environmental sustainability and Indigenous Peoples.
8. Consider formal and informal incentives for faculty support of this work.
9. Identify opportunities to pilot interdisciplinary sharing of resources beyond course-level funding units.
10. Identify opportunities to increase the profile of and reinforce action toward sustainability curriculum integration.
11. Improve ways to identify existing sustainability-related course content.