Teaching Sustainability Workshop 2013

Providing skills, knowledge, and resources for infusing environmental sustainability into your courses

Sustainability is one of the great global challenges of the twenty-first century. Whether you teach accounting or aerospace engineering, Portuguese or pathobiology, you likely have something to contribute toward addressing this challenge.The Center for a Sustainable Environment will be hosting the Teaching Sustainability Workshop on April 12-13, 2013. Apply here.

Friday, April 12 - Reception
4:00pm
Temple Buell Art Gallery, 111 Architecture Building
Guest speaker David Schejbal, print flyer

Saturday, April 13 - Workshop
Allerton Park & Retreat Center, Monticello 

The workshop will bring together a group of University of Illinois instructors who want to learn more about adding sustainability to the courses they already teach. Participants in the workshop are typically professors and instructors who are curious about sustainability and want to engage it, but who also have too much to do to become experts in sustainability. After participating in the workshop, you will have a:
 

• Working definition of sustainability.

• Framework for understanding the components of sustainability and how each relates to your expertise.

• List of readings and short videos that you can use to prepare your class or use in your class.

• Draft of exercises you might use in your classes and examples of how other instructors have incorporated sustainability into their courses.

• Set of opportunities for exploring sustainability on campus through the landscape, buildings, operations, and transportation.

• Cohort of colleagues who have similar goals about infusing sustainability into their teaching and on-going support as you test your ideas in the classroom.

• Stipend of $500 that you can use however you see fit. 
   

Our goal is to provide you with a set of ideas, concepts, models, and examples that you can modify to fit your courses. You’ll get a list of readings and short videos that you might want to use in your classes. And we will work to craft some initial ideas for exercises that you might use as you teach. 

The workshop consists of five components that are designed to make it as easy as possible for you to add sustainability to your teaching.

1. Teaching Sustainability Reception. There will be a reception on Friday, April 12, 2013 at the School of Architecture, Art Gallery from 4:00-6:30pm. The 2012 participants will receive their certificate for completing the workshop, followed by guest speaker, David Schejbal. This reception will give you an opportunity to network with last year’s participants. 

2. Teaching Sustainability Retreat. We will meet on Saturday, April 13, 2013 at Allerton Park (http://allerton.illinois.edu) from 8:30 to 5:00. This is the main event of the Workshop. We will learn from experts who have the capacity to explain concepts about sustainability in a way that is accessible to those of us who are not experts. During the day, you will develop some initial ideas, lesson plans, and exercises that you can use in your courses. We will serve you a continental breakfast, lunch, and snacks. 

3. Feedback and Revision. During the summer of 2013, we will get together with sustainability experts to provide feedback on your initial plans and course revisions.

4. Fall Check-In. Near the end of the fall 2013 semester, we will get together for lunch to learn from the members of the group who taught their revised courses and discuss the lessons they learned and what they might have done differently.

5. Debriefing. During the spring 2014 semester, we will get together to share experiences, assess results, and make recommendations for how this process might evolve. We’ll get together with next year’s cohort.

Faculty and instructors will receive a stipend for participating in these five aspects of the Workshop. Graduate students and post-docs who will be assisting with modifications of existing courses or development of new courses are also welcome to attend. 

By applying for this exciting and interactive opportunity, Teaching Sustainability Workshop participants agree to:

• Participate in the events above.

• Commit to preparing and submitting a description of the course modification or creation by the end of the retreat, and revising as needed over the summer.

• Provide a final syllabus, course modifications, and brief summary of outcomes from the experience.

Please follow up with Amy Rosenbery (husted@illinois.edu) if you have questions about this opportunity. Based on current plans, we anticipate that 20 instructors will be accommodated. Applicants will be notified by mid-March if they have been selected to participate.

Participant Agenda
Teaching Sustainability Workshop Reception
Friday, April 12, 2013, 4:00-6:30pm, Temple Buell Hall Art Gallery, 111 Architecture Building
4:00pm - "The Changing Nature of Higher Education and the Role of Sustainability Education in the Process" presented by David Schejbal. Print flyer

Sustainability Curriculum Retreat,
Saturday, April 13, 2013 
8:30am-5:00pm, Allerton Park & Retreat Center
More details to come!

This event is supported by the Center for a Sustainable Environment and the Office of the Provost.