The Three-Step Method for Sustainability Integration into Courses

Step one: Identify potential graduate work context and their sustainability connections 

Goal: Identify real-world contexts where your students could have an impact on sustainability-related issues.

How to: 

Fill out the ‘Impact sheet’: (Note: this template functions as a starting point for subsequent steps. The PDF of these templates can be found at the end of this section.):

1. Select one course that you’re currently teaching.
2. Identify at least 3 main topics you cover in the course. For each topic, start new new “Impact Sheet” (sample template provided at the PDF link below).
3. Think of work-life scenarios where these competencies might be applied by your students after graduation and what a potential sustainability impact could be.

Example:

Starting with a course focusing on traffic simulation theory and use of a simulation tool.

• Something you teach: Traffic Simulation
• Context (Industry): Bus operator
• Sustainability Related Activities: Bus route optimisation (used to respond to route tenders)
• Sustainability Impact: Reducing car traffic, increasing public transport usage

Step two: Examine the contexts deeper to find resources, tools and inspiration for sustainability integration 

Goal: Generate ideas on resources, models, and tools that can support the teaching of sustainability within your context. A good idea is to look for easily accessible ideas. 

Inspirational questions might be: "Who could you invite as a guest speaker to your lecture to talk about sustainability themes?” or  “Is there any data related to sustainability that could help the students learn about the topics you teach?" 

How to:

1. Review your “Impact Sheet” from Step One and look at each topic's potential real-world context.
2. Think about resources, models, or tools that could help teach these topics. Examples include simulations, industry-standard frameworks, and case studies. (sample template provided at the PDF link below).
3. Especially valuable are any methods or tools (direct or indirect) that would allow the students to evaluate or measure the sustainability impact being discussed.

Step three: Generate new course content (examples, lectures, assignments etc.) drawing inspiration from the two previous steps.

Goal: Transform your ideas from step two into ideas for teaching methods and assignments. This step is still an ideation. The emphasis is on “what” could be used in teaching. From the ideas, you can then choose one or more ideas for implementation. The actual teaching methods for the final implementation step are not covered in this method.

How to:

1. Using the context and tools identified, create activities, assignments, or projects that allow students to practise these skills in your course setting. (Sample template provided at the PDF link below.)
2. For each topic, list possible methods that emphasize active learning and problem-solving, such as:
   • Case studies based on real-world problems
   • Group projects that simulate industry challenges
   • Hands-on activities like labs, simulations, or field visits
      

Essentially, teachers take the opportunity to identify different ways to integrate sustainability into an existing course, while keeping the course’s original learning outcomes.

Final Steps:

After the three steps are completed, teachers are encouraged to analyse their results on the templates and then think of how they can update their course via different approaches.

The approaches are:

1. Contextualising. This is simply explaining how the content taught in the course contributes towards sustainability. No actual content changes are needed.
2. New content. This means adding sustainability-related content such as lectures or reading materials into the course. Typically this means that some other content needs to be removed to keep course workload constant.

3. Assignments and exercises. Assignments and exercises are the best ways to make sustainability content understandable to students. Linking assignments to real-world challenges with a sustainability impact, helps students see the connections between their discipline and sustainability.

   a) Modify existing assignments. This could mean adding new viewpoints, evaluating the outcomes from a sustainability perspective without changing the fundamental aspects of the assignment

   b) Set new assignments with a stronger sustainability dimension.