Steps to Integrate Sustainability | Sustainability in Curriculum

Framework for integrating sustainability into curriculum

To support departments and faculty considering sustainability in their curriculum, a simple yet flexible framework was developed to meaningfully integrate sustainability throughout programs of study as relevant. It can be used to address the unique needs of your department and aid you in working through the process to understand the next steps for your department. Within the framework you will find guiding questions and outlining points that can lead discussion to clearly identify opportunities for integration.

This framework pulls together information and resources so units don’t need to reinvent the wheel. This toolkit has connected supports for the work in an effort to bring together departments the resources they need.

If you're not convinced yet, or are looking for resources to explain the value of sustainability in curriculum to your peers, review why sustainability should be in your department's curriculum.

How to use the framework to guide curricular discussions

Every department will engage with sustainability differently as relevant to the discipline. You may have already embedded sustainability in your curriculum and offer opportunities for students to build on their understanding throughout the program, or this may not be something you have considered yet. Depending where you are in your sustainability journey, different steps in the framework will be relevant.

While some foundational understanding of what sustainability is and why it is relevant is necessary for curricular change, this may be something your department has already reviewed or needs to revisit. This framework is intended to be used in collaboration with a department or curriculum committee to understand the current status of sustainability integration within the curriculum, and identify meaningful next steps.

If you are feeling stuck and it is not clear where to go next, consider connecting with some of the excellent supports on campus available to help work through this.

1. Understand

Purpose: Build a general foundation of what sustainability means in the context of the department and the discipline

Process: Departments conduct conversations to discern how faculty members interpret sustainability for themselves, their research, and ultimately the department.

Outcomes: Your department may decide to draft a formal definition of sustainability to guide teaching in the department and build competencies from, or simply provide guidance for individual faculty members in the department. Ultimately, understandings of sustainability will need to be revisited over time as the field advances and integration grows deeper.

Guiding Questions:

How can sustainability be understood?
What are the ways of thinking and framing?

Check out resources.

2. Connect

Purpose: Determine how sustainability specifically relates to the discipline and what skills, knowledge, or values related to sustainability a student may need to know.

Process: Review what content students already learn, the relevance of sustainability, and what students may need in the future. Departments will review what existing learning objectives need to be updated to include a sustainable perspective and what new content needs to be created to remain current in the field and create future-ready graduates.

Outcomes: Departments will ideally identify key skills, competencies, and values students will need related to sustainability, and formulate appropriate learning objectives.

Guiding Questions:

What does sustainability mean for the discipline?
How does it impact students and what competencies does a graduate need?

Check out resources.

3. Integrate

Purpose: Take action on the insights of the connect step and deliver content on the skills, knowledge, and values identified as being relevant to students studying in the department.

Process: Where relevant, appropriate, and feasible, faculty will integrate sustainability content into their teaching to meet these needs. Ideally this is done on a program-wide basis to intentionally build on knowledge of sustainability through courses, similar to how understanding of other skills is built upon throughout a degree program, and to avoid overlap or duplication risks.

Outcomes: The nature of integrations is naturally going to vary greatly depending on the discipline and the needs of the department. Integration Methods outlined in the toolkit illustrate many of the different approaches for integration that could be utilized, based on existing work on campus, with peers, and through literature review. These are not exhaustive, nor are they mutually exclusive—often more than one integration method could be necessary to translate the skills and competencies that were identified in the “Connect” step into learning outcomes.

Guiding Questions:

How can sustainability be integrated into courses or programs?
What supports and resources can be used?

Check out resources.

4. Evaluate

Purpose: Review the integration created in the previous integrate step and determine if it has delivered on the desired content identified in the connect step.

Process: This may include assessment of students to determine their understandings and meeting with faculty to determine how they managed the updates. Departments will ideally identify if any gaps exist and if so, what barriers or challenges led to these.

Outcomes: This stage will naturally look different in every department depending on the relevant connections made and the integrations pursued.

Guiding Questions:

How can the impact of integration be assessed?

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5. Adapt & Enhance

Purpose: Improve and deepen the integration formed within the department.

Process: Departments will reflect on the full process from understanding to evaluating and identify any opportunities for improvements.

Outcomes: The nature of the adapt and enhance stage is going to be very different for every department. This may include closing gaps identified in the evaluate stage, addressing challenges and barriers in the process, or deepening understanding of or connection to sustainability in the discipline, especially as broader sustainability issues, topics, and concepts change over time. Any identified change in the process may have implications for other steps. For example, a new, deeper understanding of sustainability may change the nature of connections to sustainability within the discipline, with implications for integration and evaluation. Alternatively, feedback from evaluation may identify other opportunities for connection and integration. This will lead to reviewing and iterating on the full process, as sustainability continues to grow and evolve.

Guiding Questions:

What are the barriers to the successful integration?
How can we continue to advance sustainability in this discipline?

Check out resources.