Teaching and learning data

Courses Focused on/Including Sustainability

The course inventory is based on over 6,000 course descriptions within the undergraduate and graduate calendars. The Sustainability Office used keyword matching for each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, using keywords that had been developed by SDSN Global, to do a first pass of course descriptions. This method was complemented by manual review of the course descriptions from the Sustainability Office to either corroborate or reject the keyword findings, or to identify courses that may have been missed. The final inventory includes a list of courses where there are:

• Likely connections to each SDG, where there was a keyword match and upon manual review there seemed a clear connection to the specific SDG targets
• Potential connections to each SDG, where there was a keyword match but upon manual review it was determined that more information was needed about the course, OR that there was no keyword match but upon manual review there looked like thematic connections to the SDGs and their specific targets

The most recent inventory is based on the 2023/24 Academic calendars. In previous years, the Sustainability Office has worked through academic department chairs to confirm/validate connections to more environmental sustainability-themed courses.

Limitations and Exclusions:

• Course descriptions are not exhaustive, and it is possible that there are many more courses that have units, modules, or case studies related to sustainability that were not included in the description. Further analysis could be conducted by looking at course syllabi.
• Some department chairs did not respond to requests for confirmation in the past, in which case the original inventory was used. Approximately 81% of courses were verified at the time, though inclusion of the SDGs and their targets as a basis of analysis significantly widens consideration.
• Special Topics courses were normally excluded from the count, unless the description provided a list of specific topics that could be related to sustainability. Transfer courses, high school courses, Laurier courses, and any courses that appeared in the calendar but were noted not to be offered until future years, were also excluded.
• The academic calendar lists all courses that are available at the University of Waterloo, but does not indicate whether they were actually scheduled. Further analysis could be done through the Quest system to analyze the number of courses and sections offered.
• Course numbers and descriptions may change year-over-year, which sometimes impacts the ability to see comparative change over time.

2023/2024

• Organized the Integrating Sustainability Across Undergraduate Programs project
• Funded the Sustainability Integration in Curriculum Grants to provide resources for programs to research, collaborate, and implement sustainability learning opportunities
• Hosted a full day symposium to bring together educators from across campus and peer institutions to share and explore strategies that can enhance and improve climate-related teaching and learning
• Launched Sustainability Integration in Curriculum Grants with 3 pilot departments
• Launched Integrating Sustainability in Curriculum website and toolkit for course and program developers
• Created new Master of Future Cities graduate program
• Faculties of Engineering, Environment and Mathematics began using an interdisciplinary approach through their upper-year capstone experiences, with a major focus on sustainability

2022/2023

• Implemented incentives for capstone courses in Engineering to integrate sustainability thinking in their final year projects, through the Capstone Sustainable Design award
• Created processes and systems to identify existing courses and curriculum that include important connections to sustainability topics and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Launched the new degree program, Bachelor of Science in Climate and Environmental Change, combining knowledge from biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, and human geography
• Engaged dozens of graduate students in a three-week virtual water security summer school

2021/2022

• Launched the new degree program, Sustainability and Financial Management, a collaborative and interdisciplinary program between the School of Accounting and Finance and the School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development
• Began conducting a mapping and analysis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals across the academic calendar
• Work began on planning a Voluntary University Review of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a part of the project being to host a workshop for instructors to reflect on opportunities for integrating sustainability in curriculum
• Hired the Green Innovation Program Developer to enhance student learning across the green innovation ecosystem and catalyze an external network of sustainable entrepreneurs 

2020/2021

• Integrated content on the UN Sustainable Development Goals into the Professional Development 1 course, providing a relevant learning opportunity for all co-op students on campus
• Launched the Climate Change Fund to provide support to entrepreneurship efforts that were tackling climate change mitigation and adaptation

2019/2020

• The Sustainability Diploma and fundamentals online course were approved and piloted, giving a mechanism for all undergraduates to learn about sustainability
• Entrepreneurship @ Environment was launched

2018/2019

• The Faculty of Environment began development of a Sustainability Fundamentals online course, which is available for any student on campus to provide an introduction to sustainability theory and challenges
• The Faculty of Engineering launched the Architectural Engineering program, as a collaboration between Civil Engineering and the School of Architecture
• Supported the World’s Challenge Challenge, where student teams picked one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and pitched their idea to a global problem
• Partnered on the launch of the evolvGreen collaborative workspace for clean economy entrepreneurs in the new evolv1 building, in cooperation with Sustainable Waterloo Region, the Accelerator Centre, the City of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier

2017/2018

• GreenHouse social innovation incubator opened its new space in the building addition at United College (formerly St. Paul's)
• Velocity expanded its entrepreneurship support by launching Velocity Start @ Environment