Paper No. 132-10
Presentation Time: 4:10 PM
IMPROVING STUDENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRANSDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF SUSTAINABILITY PROBLEMS
SZYMANSKI, David1, BENDER-AWALT, Mitchell2, BOUWMA-GEARHART, Jana3, CARLSON, Ashley2, IVERSON, Ellen2, JACKSON YOUNG, Laura4, LENCZEWSKI, Melissa E.5, MOONEY, Christine6, OCHES, Rick1, RITTER, John7, SOLAR, Danielle1 and WILSON, Rachel8, (1)Department of Natural & Applied Sciences, Bentley University, 175 Forest St, Waltham, MA 02452, (2)Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College, 1 North College Street, Northfield, MN 55057, (3)College of Education, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, (4)Department of Economics, Bentley University, 175 Forest St, Waltham, MA 02452, (5)Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Northern Illinois University, 1425 W Lincoln Hwy, Davis Hall, Dekalb, IL 60115, (6)Management, Northern Illinois University, 1425 W. Lincoln Hwy., DeKalb, IL 60115, (7)Biological and Environmental Sciences, Wittenberg University, 200 W Ward St., Springfield, OH 45504, (8)Business and Economics, Wittenberg University, 200 W Ward St., Springfield, MA 45504
Sustainability challenges are wicked problems that cannot be described nor “solved” using a single disciplinary lens. Preparing the next generation of leaders to tackle these problems requires systems thinking skills and helping students recognize the transdisciplinary nature of sustainability, which is an ill-defined term. The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) exist in an interconnected world that do not abide disciplinary boundaries, especially in an increasingly resource-constrained and globally connected economy. Developing accessible transdisciplinary curricula that can be used in a wide range of college courses is difficult. Until now, universities have had limited success at the intersection of STEM disciplines, much less including disciplines from business or social sciences in the development of sustainability curriculum.
We have previously presented a new model for co-development transdisciplinary curriculum, Business and Science: Integrated Curriculum for Sustainability (BASICS) (Szymanski et al., 2023). The project is an NSF-funded partnership among STEM and business faculty at three different institutions – Bentley University (Waltham, MA), Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL), and Wittenberg University (Springfield, OH) – that has produced two transdisciplinary sustainability curriculum modules. The modules, which comprise a collaboratively designed “common exercise,” and course-specific exercises to provide disciplinary context, are freely available for use on the BASICS website (serc.carleton.edu/basics).
Pre/post assessments of student learning results quantitatively demonstrate that the modules are successful in helping students recognize the need for numerous academic disciplines to describe and propose solutions to the wicked problems of sustainability. In post-module assessments, students also identify larger gains in interdisciplinary learning skills, compared to the national Research on the Integrated Science Curriculum (RISC) surveys (e.g., Cookmeyer et al., 2017).
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