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Solutions for fulfilling the academic requirements of the ACUPCC, which include actions to make climate neutrality and sustainability a part of the curriculum and other educational experience for all students, will be highly institution-specific and should take into account the institution's particular strengths. An important first step is cataloging the institution's current educational offerings (both curricular and extra-curricular) related to climate change and sustainability. Then further actions to make climate neutrality and sustainability a part of the curriculum and other educational experience for all students can be planned. Example actions that institutions may wish to consider include:
- Initiation of faculty development workshops on climate change and sustainability
- Creation of new academic programs related to climate change and sustainability
- Establishment of a graduation requirement in sustainability
- Development of institution-wide incentives or programs to encourage faculty across the institution to address sustainability in their courses
- Participation in climate-related educational initiatives like Focus the Nation
- Inclusion of students on building and construction, operations, and facilities committees
Implementation of student life educational initiatives related to climate change and sustainability, such as: peer-to-peer outreach and education efforts like "Eco-Rep" programs; sustainability pledge programs (e.g. Graduation Pledge or Harvard Campus Sustainability Pledge); First Year Experience and/or New Student Orientation sustainability sessions; sustainability themed housing; and sustainability competitions between residence halls.
Model Initiatives
Arizona State University has launched its School of Sustainability, which intends to educate “a new generation of leaders through collaborative learning, transdisciplinary approaches, and problem-oriented training to address the environmental, economic, and social challenges of the 21st Century.” The school builds on the research portfolio of the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU, and will collaborate closely with a number of departments on campus to offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Northern Arizona University and Emory University have implemented faculty development programs that have helped approximately 200 faculty revise 300 courses in virtually every discipline to make sustainability the context or the content of learning - reaching more than 15,000 students.
Many campuses are incorporating aspects of the ACUPCC into the classroom, and on an extra-curricular basis, to engage students in completing the campus GHG inventory and contributing to the development of the Climate Action Plan. Students at Middlebury College, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Ohio University have all been active in this process on their campuses. At least 12 Cornell faculty members, from such fields as engineering, biology, architecture and communication, are devoting all or part of an academic course during the fall of 2007 to evaluate options for Cornell to become climate neutral. Students in an engineering management course will consider engineering solutions to greenhouse gas reductions, while students in a communications course are developing a campus survey on climate neutrality and planning a communication campaign. In other courses, students are examining additional options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ranging from design in landscape and building architecture to energy management in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Resources
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