Faculty - How To Green Your Courses

Faculty - How to Green Your Courses
 
 
Thank you for taking time to learn more about how to green your courses.  There are a multitude of ways to integrate green concepts and sustainability into your course.  You will find below an introduction to the concept of sustainability and specific resources to assist you in greening your courses.

There are many universities who are systematically integrating sustainability into the curriculum and developing sustainability certificates, majors, minors, graduate programs and research initiatives.

Read the article, Educating Sustainable Societies for the Twenty-first Century.

The abstract is as follows:

Despite an increasing focus by post-secondary institutions on incorporating sustainability concepts into research and operations there is little research that investigates the understanding, benefits, challenges, and driving forces for institutions that are integrating sustainability concepts into teaching. This paper is a summary of a qualitative cross-case analysis of two post-secondary American institutions that have demonstrated significant progress in integrating the concepts of sustainability into teaching.
 
Another excellent resource is the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (http://www.aashe.org).

UNESCO has developed Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future (TLSF) for use by educators in conjunction with the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

“Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future will enable teachers to plan learning experiences that empower their students to develop and evaluate alternative visions of a sustainable future and to work creatively with others to help bring their visions of a better world into effect.”
 
Choose from any of the 25 modules designed to help you integrate sustainability into your courses.

“The 25 modules address the difficult challenge of planning for whole-school change, teaching interdisciplinary themes, using learner-centered approaches to classroom teaching, and developing outcomes-based assessment strategies.”
 
Learn more about TLSF at http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/intro/mod_a.htm or go directly to Modules 1-5 at http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_a/uncofrm_a.htm.
 
Here are 10 additional ideas on how to integrate “living green” and sustainability into your courses.

1. Assign any of the following videos for students to view outside of the classroom.
   An Inconvenient Truth, The End of Suburbia, The 11th Hour, or Is God Green? Hold a discussion in class or post questions within a threaded discussion in eCollege.
2. View the 20 minute video titled, The Story of Stuff, at http://www.storyofstuff.com/.  Hold a discussion and ask students to share their initial reactions.  Ask students to situate themselves within the context of the message of the video. 
3. View the 2 minute Youtube video, Blue Men Group Tackles Global Warming, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGWpQxMx0k.  Ask students their opinion of global warming.  Ask if they can make a difference.  If so, how?
   
4. Divide students into groups and ask, “How does this discipline (Education, Business, Philosophy, etc.) relate to the theme semester – Think Purple, Live Green?”  Write the group responses on the board and then discuss the relevance of the discipline (all disciplines are relevant).
5. Assign teams to produce a 3 minute video on a topic related to green living or sustainability such a green careers within their chosen discipline.  Load the videos to Youtube.
   
6. Require students to develop a lesson plan on a topic related to the green living or sustainability.
   Require students to select an article pertaining to living green or sustainability from a newspaper, news magazine, or journal.  Narrow the topic according to your current course topic.  Determine the best method for students to report their findings.
   
7. Just for fun!  At the beginning of class, ask students to take out a piece of paper and a pencil for a pop quiz.  Display the Green Quiz (http://www.yale.edu/procurement/greenPurchase/Green%20Quiz.htm) and instruct the students to write their answer choice to each question.  Of course, don’t count it for credit!
   Assign a green research project or paper based upon your discipline or topic.
   
8. At the beginning of the semester, brainstorm ways to make the course more green.  Don’t print and distribute the syllabus.  Email the syllabus to students.  Double side all copies.  Encourage students to print only when necessary.  Require assignments to be submitted by email or through the eCollege Dropbox.  Discourage the use of water bottles and suggest alternative containers such as metal sports bottles.  Sweep up the chalk dust from the tray, re-glue it using a syringe as a mold, and then reuse the chalk (just kidding on the chalk idea!)

If none of these ideas work for you, please contact Keith Whitworth at 817-257-5941, and I will be glad to brainstorm on ways you can integrate living green or sustainability into your classroom.