Building Sustainability Curriculum and Learning at Cal

Building Sustainability Curriculum and Learning at Cal

Project Leads: Céline Pallud and Kira Stoll

Project Sponsor: Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

TGIF Grant: $19,500

Project Theme: Education and Behavioral Change

Application Submission

Project Description: Our overall objective is to boost climate neutrality and sustainability education at UC Berkeley, especially targeting faculty and students for whom sustainability may not be a focus. This project will not only impact the faculty and departments involved, but the countless students that will benefit from having sustainability education integrated into a variety of disciplines. A pilot project was implemented in 2015‐2016, as part of the UC Carbon Neutrality Initiative. With funding from the UC Office of the President (UCOP), each UC campus organized a course curriculum workshop and a networking event to engage faculty members to infuse climate change and sustainability concepts into their existing courses. The UC Berkeley workshop targeted 15 faculty, and the follow up networking event was attended by about 35 faculty. Building off the success of last year’s Faculty Curriculum Workshop and Networking Events implemented at UC Berkeley, we propose to keep momentum of faculty and students engaged in incorporating sustainability into the curriculum in order to increase the numbers of courses with sustainability content at UC Berkeley, and the number of students who could be educated in various aspects of sustainability.

Project Goals:

  1. Increase the number of sustainability‐focused courses on campus
  2. Provide climate and sustainability education to the students who are taking courses that are not explicitly environmentally‐focused
  3. Inspire students to seek out other sustainability courses during their time here at UC Berkeley