AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CLASS SEQUENCE FOR TEACHING SUSTAINABILITY TO CAMPUSWIDE HONORS STUDENTS

In 2017, UC Irvine launched a 6-course sequence for Campuswide Honors students titled “Sustainable Societies” which aims to introduce students to features that impact the success and longevity of societies. Students typically take one course per quarter for their sophomore and junior years to meet their social science, science, and quantitative literacy general education requirements. These classes are unusual in they are team-taught by multiple professors from different departments so that students experience an interdisciplinary approach to the issues covered in each session. The classes use problem-based learning and students work together to tackle complex, real-world problems and develop solutions through team and research projects.

This presentation will detail the approach and activities carried out in the second and third classes in the sequence that discuss climate change and access to food and clean water, co-taught by Earth system science, urban planning and public policy, and business administration professors. Traditional introductory geoscience classes on similar topics usually focus on the science underlying the issue and disproportionate impacts on populations, but discussions of solutions are often limited to technological options and it is rare that methods of implementing solutions are presented. However, as a result of having a broader range of expertise among the instructors, in our classes we are able to emphasize policy approaches and business incentives for enacting change.

We will present data on the impact that the classes have on student understanding of the issues, their perceptions of the relevance of the topics to their future lives and careers, and their perception of what is needed in order to solve some of these societally-relevant sustainability challenges. For comparison, data will be provided for students who have not participated in this sequence. We also will include responses from faculty involved in this 6-class sequence assessing whether the experience of co-teaching with colleagues in different fields has changed their approach to teaching about sustainability.