Courses and Syllabi

Participants in the Prairie Project were inspired to include sustainability in their courses.  Below you will find revised syllabi and some example assignments with clear linkages to the Sustainability Learning Outcomes.  In addition, there are resources from other universities that offer similar curriculum workshops and national organizations.  We encourage you to integrate sustainability into your course.

BADM 532 Sustainable Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces

BADM 533 Sustainable Product Design and Business Plan Development

Example Syllabi for Sustainability-Infused Courses:

Courses of the 2010 Prairie Project Resource People and Participants

NRES 285: Wetland Delineation and Classification (PDF)

NRES 287 ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY – SPRING 2010 (PDF)

Conservation and Ecosystem Health (PDF)

Ecotoxicology of the Northern Hemisphere (PDF)

IB 105: Environmental Biology Fall 2010(PDF) 
IB 105: Environmental Biology Spring 2010 (PDF)

Political Science - Learning Outcomes - Introduction to International Relations (PDF)
Political Science 280 Fall 2010 (PDF)
Political Science 280 Fall 2009 (PDF)

LAS 101 Fall 2010: Environmental Sustainability & World Citizenship (PDF)
LAS 101: Homework 5 on ecological footprinting and environmental sustainability (PDF)

CEE 498: Multilateral Environmental Agreements Fall 2010 (PDF)
CEE 498: Multilateral Environmental Agreements (PDF)

CEE 535: Environmental Systems Analysis II Sustainable & Resilient Environmental & Water Resource Systems (PDF)
CEE 535: Spring 2011 Upper Embarras Project Terms (PDF)

UP 204, Chicago: Planning and Urban Life, Spring 2011 (PDF)
UP 204, Chicago: Planning and Urban Life: Course Description (PDF)
UP 204, Chicago: Planning and Urban Life: Overview (PDF)

External Examples:

Association for the Advanceemnt of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) examples of courses on campus sustainability (PDF)

AASHE course inventories*

AASHE list of Web sites with example syllabi*

Ponderosa Project Web site, containing course syllabi and other resources

Piedmont Project syllabi and course modules

* These sites require a members-only login to the AASHE site. The University of Illinois is an institutional member and you can create an account for free with a uiuc.edu (and hopefully Illinois.edu) e-mail address.

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.

Independent Projects

Illini Energy Dashboard
The Illini Energy Dashboard provides clearly visible understandable information data and information to students and staff of selected University buildings describing energy consumption rate (electrical, chilled water and steam) so that users can make educated choices about the way they can affect energy consumption and conservation.What is Displayed? The gauges on the each building page displays real-time energy use data by building for heating, cooling and electricity.

F&S requested that SSC funding from FY14 and FY13 for the Campus Bike Center be allowed to be used for the Campus Bike Center in FY15. 

1. There is $2,224.50 remaining of the funding allocation for the “Campus Bike Project” from FY13.  I am requesting permission from the SSC to use these funds during FY15, for staff and student employee costs.  This is not a change in scope, just a schedule change to permit FY15 use of funds.
2. The current funding allocation for the “Campus Bicycle Shop” in FY14 included specific items for the funding in support of the Bike Center.  I am requesting permission to use any remaining funds from this year’s allocation during FY15, for staff and student employee costs.

~Morgan Johnston

The attached Manual was developed with students and Amelia Neptune over the last few years.  The most helpful part of this document is the liability Q&A that Tina helped create.  I cleaned the file up a bit this morning to fix broken links and check for any glaring errors. 

To bring you and those copied here up to speed, I’ll share a few points that are happening with bike sharing now. 

• The successfully implemented bike sharing on campus is at Kinesiology and Community Health.  They have six bikes for employee use, and wrote a research report about the usage (attached).  They simply have the keys at a desk with a sign-out list, and they send the bikes for maintenance once a year.  The contact person is Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko at Kinesiology.
• This summer, the MTD is planning to start working with campus and the cities to investigate a public bike sharing system, and that conversation is just beginning.  The contact person is Rebecca Nathanson at MTD.
• AITS is planning to set up a departmental bike sharing program, in cooperation with the Campus Bike Center and iSEE.  The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD) is planning to contribute funds towards administrative support for maintaining the bikes.  It is likely that 10-20 bikes will be purchased from “On Bikes,” which comes with a locking and tracking system. 
• Grace Kyung has had numerous conversations with Zagster, which was formed by former staff at Zipcar.  Their system is an all-inclusive turn-key approach, where you pay a set-up fee, then pay a recurring monthly fee for maintenance and oversight.  The set up fee is around $2000 per bike and the monthly fee is about $100 per bike.  The bikes then continue to belong to Zagster.  I did not support the Zagster model for campus employee use, but it may be reasonable for Allerton’s intended use.  If you are interested, their CEO is visiting town on Thursday. 

Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with to get this set up.

Thanks,

Morgan

On May 23, 2014, at 4:07 PM, "McEllin, Tina D" wrote:

Hi Derek,

To start I’m going to refer you to Morgan Johnston, Assoc. Director of Sustainability.    I believe Morgan has a draft manual for depts. to use when setting up programs for employees.   I don’t know if it will address offering this service to the public so you may have to add language to that effect.     

Since you will have the public liability issue I would like to review your draft manual to make sure exposure to the University is controlled as much as possible.  Please feel free to call me with any questions. 

Thank you.

Tina McEllin,  Assoc. Dir.

University Office of Risk Management

247 Henry Admin. Bldg.   M-C 337

506 S. Wright St., Urbana IL 61801

PH 217-333-3113

FX 217-239-6744

Check out our website!   www.uirisk.uillinois.edu

Please note: Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), any written communication to or from University employees regarding University business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure.

From: Peterson, Derek Eli
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 3:51 PM
To: Kale, PJ; McEllin, Tina D
Cc: Kevin Donovan
Subject: Allerton Park and Retreat Center

Good Afternoon PJ and Tina-

Joe Vitosky said the two of you might be a good start for me, I need some advice. Allerton Park is going to start a Bike Rental, or Bike Share program. I am interested to know if any other units, or if there is any standard documentation that might assist me through this process. We have researched other local entities that do bike share and rental and so we have some standard language, but we will be offering this to the public, so we need to make sure the University if legally covered. As I type I feel underprepared to ask this question, but I thought you might have some advice for me to help get me started.

Thank you for your time-

-- 

Derek Peterson

Associate Director

Allerton Park & Retreat Center

University of Illinois

515 Old Timber Road

Monticello, IL  61856

O 217.333.3287, ext. 203

M 217-778-9111

www.allerton.illinois.edu

Congratulations,

You now have access to the SSC funding that was granted to you for your Recycling on the Quad project. Attached is a copy of the SSC funding agreement that you signed along with other parties. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best Wishes,

Marques Burris

SSC Program Advisor

The photovoltaic panels on LEED Platinum certified Business Instructional Facility (BIF) rooftop harvests solar radiation as a clean renewable energy source for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign facility. The solar system has a combined maximum output of 40 kilowatt per hour (kWh), and has an annual production of 60,000 kWh. The system is expected to produce approximately eight percent of the building’s total electricity demand. However, solar panels require unobstructed access to solar radiation for most or all of the day to be effective

The Campus Bike Center opened for business in May 2010, funded by The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign, a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee, the Center for a Sustainable Environment, and supplementary funding from the Facilities and Services Department at UIUC[1]. The Center offers a hands-on, educational space in which students and community members can have access to knowledge and experience in maintaining and fixing bicycles, as well as all of the necessary tools and products to do so. The Center’s outlined mission is to teach bicycle maintenance, providing access to affordable equipment, support overall safety education, and participate in campus bicycle community outreach2. The Center also has described goals for sustainability; to contribute towards the ICAP goal to reduce transportation emissions by 50% in 2025, support those who use bicycles for transportation, to make bikes a more feasible alternative to motor vehicles on this campus, and to expand these efforts even more through increased outreach and publicity efforts, increased staff capacity, more events outside of the shop to reach new audiences, more refurbished bikes to sell to students, and more courses, workshops, and demonstrations to educate the campus about bikes2.

[1] Neptune, Amelia. Bike Shop Student Sustainability Committee Application. UIUC ICAP Portal. http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-updates/102. 11 Nov 2012. Accessed 8 May 2014.

In the words of Valerie Oliveiro, Assistant to the Senior Associate Director of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, KCPA is “dedicated to the advancement of the education, research, and public engagement mission of the University of Illinois through the pursuit of excellence and innovation in the performing arts.”[1] These words exemplify the importance of KCPA to the campus community. A hub of social interaction and innovation, Krannert has a unique role as a leader and innovator in sustainability initiatives at the University of Illinois. This unique importance is what drove KCPA to the idea of implementing LED lighting in its lobby. After more than two years of research and experimentation, consideration to the developing goals of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) and joint funding from the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) and the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, KCPA finally decided to pull the trigger on The University’s largest LED lighting project.

[1] Oliveiro, Valerie. ICECF Funding Proposal for the KCPA LED Lobby Lighting Retrofit Project. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois, September 17th, 2009