DEEPENING STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND POLICY THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH AN URBAN OUTREACH CENTER

Experiential learning through engaged scholarship both deepens and broadens the undergraduate curriculum. Community outreach, internships, and service work allow students to build transferrable skills beyond what can be taught in the classroom. At the same time, working in government offices, non-profit organizations, or directly in neighborhoods instills a sense of responsibility and accountability. The Penn State Center Pittsburgh is an urban outreach center that facilitates a variety of engaged scholarship opportunities for students. The City Semester Pittsburgh program brings students from any major at any Penn State campus to downtown Pittsburgh for a semester-long course in Urban Sustainability, partnered with a community-based internship. The curriculum is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to support equity and quality of life in urban areas, and topics covered include climate action, architectural design, clean energy, landscape architecture, and environmental justice. Internships place students in government offices such as city planning, non-profit organizations promoting adoption of solar power and green building, community organizations supporting food equity and waste reduction, and much more. The Penn State Center Pittsburgh has also partnered with the Geosciences Program for Energy and Environmental Resources Sustainability (GeoPEERS) Research Experience for Undergraduates at Penn State University Park. Students from across the country come to University Park for eight weeks during the summer to engage in mentor-lead research and to study energy and the environment as an integrated system. While this program is also built around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the rural setting of the University Park campus is a barrier to direct engagement in urban sustainability and environmental justice. By partnering with the urban outreach center, participants meet community activists who are addressing issues of food inequity, urban sustainability, and biodiversity through community gardening / urban farming, solar power installation, and stewardship of vacant lots. Visiting with people and learning about current sustainability efforts in the City of Pittsburgh connects GeoPEERS participants with the Water-Energy-Food nexus in a practical way that cannot be replicated in the classroom.