Getting to the Point: Teaching STEM Content Through Societal Challenges

 

Debra Rowe, U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development

Kelly Mack & Catherine Fry, Association of American Colleges and Universities

AASHE Conference & Expo 2012October 16, 2012

Sustainability Improves Student Learning (SISL) in

STEM

Project Kaleidoscope

Organizing Partners:

Funded by:

About the organizers…Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) • Founded in 1989; now part of the Association

of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U)• Leading advocate for building and sustaining

strong undergraduate programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)

• Network of nearly 7,000 faculty members and administrators at more than 1,000 colleges, universities, and organizations

• Far-reaching influence in shaping undergraduate STEM learning environments that attract and retain undergraduate students www.aacu.org/pkal

About the organizers…Disciplinary Associations Network

for Sustainability (DANS) • Sponsored by the U.S. Partnership for

Education for Sustainable Development• Seeks to help higher education exert

strong leadership in making education, research, and practice for a sustainable society a reality

• Network of over thirty academic disciplinary professional associations

dans.aashe.org

About the organizers…

Mobilizing STEM Education for a Sustainable Future

• Launched in 2008 with funding from the National Science Foundation

• By more strongly connecting the content and pedagogy of undergraduate STEM courses to real-world challenges (i.e., energy, water, and food), the project aims to both improve student learning and to prepare citizens who are motivated to address these challenges

About the initiative…

• SISL in STEM leverages the influence of 11 STEM disciplinary societies to contextualize teaching and learning in terms of sustainability challenges

• These societies are working together to use sustainability to underpin their programs, policies, strategic planning, and member activities

Who is part of SISL?• Disciplines represented: – Physical sciences– Life sciences– Social sciences– Quantitative sciences/mathematics – Applied sciences/engineering– Other – Outreach to more

Project Teams

1) Developing and seeking endorsement of common language about the importance of and commitment to education for a sustainable future

 2) Gathering and disseminating resources to

support the infusion of sustainability into teaching and learning

 3) Implementing interdisciplinary, problem-based

professional development workshops based on real-world societal challenges

Project Teams, cont’d4) Developing public policy recommendations to

include sustainability themes in STEM education and establishing pathways for civic engagement for society members and their students

5) Conducting audience research to refine the messages of the initiative and to guide communication about sustainability with educators and others

 6) Developing content for textbooks and online

resources to infuse sustainability into introductory STEM courses and improve publisher/author inclusion of learning activities about sustainability challenges and problem solving

• Increase visibility of sustainability as an important concept for undergraduate STEM faculty to infuse into introductory STEM courses.

• Improve access to and promote the uptake of resources that increase student learning related to the Big Questions that our students will deal with as citizens, voters, teachers, and/or STEM professionals.

• Promote the uptake of instructional strategies involving real-world issues by members of participating societies, including the adoption and adaptation of new or refined curricular materials and teaching approaches that focus on real world issues and Big Questions as they relate to sustainability.

 

SISL objectives

• Collaborate across participating societies on the activities that they advance, promote, and encourage; and, in the process, learn from each other about what works and what doesn’t.

• Connect and sustain the efforts of participating societies in pursuing common efforts and leading the way for others to join these efforts. 

 

SISL objectives, cont’d

Ultimately, the goal of our initiative is to increase student learning in undergraduate STEM courses in order to better prepare them for playing a role in solving the 21st century “Big Questions" that relate to real-world issues such as energy, air and water quality, and climate change.

Educating for a Sustainable Future

“Education for a Sustainable Future enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in decisions …, that will improve the quality of life now

without damaging the planet for the future… ”

-- UNESCO 2002

“The challenge of living on this emerging planet is the challenge of our time, exempting no one, no organization, no nation, and no generation.”

page xviDavid Orr,

• A world with a large number of desperately poor

• The ongoing militarization of the planet

• The perpetual enlargement of the human footprint in nature

• Graduating students without the change agent skills to create solutions to our shared sustainability challenges

What is NOT sustainable …?

Applied Knowledge/

TechnologicalSkills

Private Choices and Behaviors-Habits

Public Choices and Behaviors-Laws

Sustainable Communities

Sustainable Economies

EcosystemEcosystem

EcosystemEcosystem

  “Genuine sustainability, in other words, will come not

from superficial changes but from a deeper process akin to

humankind growing into a fuller stature.”

page 67

The opportunity

Each academic discipline has a unique and important contribution to make to solutions to our shared sustainability challenges.

This initiative focuses on providing students multiple learning opportunities for real-world problem solving to understand our sustainability challenges and develop the skills and knowledge to engage in personal and systemic solutions.

“For sustainability will be best understood within the larger framework of values, meaning, and purpose. Such a new approach to liberal arts, science, and sustainability will demand much of its students; it will demand even more of faculty members. But it will have one distinct potential benefit: If it is taught as an exercise in exploration and discovery, it may form the basis for a new kind of global map — a policy blueprint — that would allow us to set a common course for all the people of our rare, beautiful, and benevolent planet.”

-- Frank T. Rhodes, President Emeritus, Cornell University, Source: “Sustainability: The Ultimate Liberal Art” 2006

Ways to integrate sustainability

• Learning activities (e.g., Positive futuring)• Theme throughout the course (e.g., how can we use

what we’re learning to make the world a better place)• Class projects• Assessments• College-wide readings (e.g. Plan B: Mobilizing to Save

Civilization by Lester Brown)• Minors• S in the schedule• Across curricular initiatives• Interdisciplinary offerings

A Useful ExerciseIn the next five minutes:

• Faculty – Think of a big idea you already have to teach in your course and a big sustainability idea. Create a learning activity that includes both.

• Everyone else - Take your job activities and/or your daily activities and think about how you can make them more sustainability oriented in terms of your behaviors, the normal practices or the policies in the institution. Describe the actions you can choose to help build a culture of sustainability.

• When finished, share among the group.

Thanks to Jean MacGregor at Curricula for the Bioregion for this idea.

Creating Systemic Change

Where are you getting stuck?

Using the cards provided, please write down the barriers you have encountered in terms of integrating sustainability into the curriculum or elsewhere.

When finished, please pass them forward (you can remain anonymous).

Resources & opportunities available from SISL

• Statement on Educating for a Sustainable Future, as endorsed on AAPT’s website: www.aapt.org/Resources/policy/Education-for-a-Sustainable-Future.cfm

• Curricular resources from DANS: dans.aashe.org/content/resources

• Call for reviewers of sustainability content in textbooks: www.aashe.org/announcements/textbooks

• On the SISL web site, you can also find:• A printable brochure to share with others• Articles from our partner disciplinary

societies on the importance of and their commitment to education for a sustainable future• More resources are currently in

development, so please check back!: www.aacu.org/pkal/sisl