CA Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC)

University of California at Santa Barbara - June 24, 2013

Faculty from six campuses in central California associated with the SEED Consortium gathered at the CHESC conference in Santa Barbara on June 24, 2013 to present their collaborative work on introducing sustainability into higher education through project-based and other “active” learning strategies.

Putting Sustainability to Work: How town-grown relationships can better prepare the next green-tech workforce focused on strategies that have been successfully used by members of the consortium to recruit industry partnerships and to prepare students for successful careers in the expanding green-tech workforce. This interactive session, included a “gallery-walk” through posters featuring curriculum and service learning programs at different sites and two roundtable discussions designed to help the audience discover how to leverage resources and create curriculum that prioritizes interdisciplinary, team-based, service-learning projects, interactive laboratories, and hands-on research at their home sites.

Impetus for the projects and curriculum that were presented in this session began with several NSF- supported initiatives to design, develop and disseminate sustainability curricula and lab modules that would improve science technology engineering and math (STEM) courses through hands-on learning. A major outcome of this award was the formation of a regional consortium interested in ongoing development of curriculum that explores and implements sustainability as an inter-discipline. To date, over 1500 students at campuses affiliated with the SEED Consortium (including those that serve high percentages of underrepresented minorities (URM): Cabrillo College 33% URM, Hartnell College 61% URM, San Jose State 25% URM, UC Merced 42% URM, and UCSC 22% URM) have benefited from teaching materials designed by members of the SEED consortium. External evaluation of student learning outcomes have indicated positive improvement in a) students’ abilities to use engineering design and problem solving skills/knowledge to create sustainable solutions, b) apply interdisciplinary reasoning to define problems and evaluate solutions c) motivation and preparedness to integrate sustainability thinking into future career, education and personal choices. Collectively faculty in the SEED consortium have supported over 40 teams of (typically 2-5) students who have completed as many service-learning projects in the past three years.

Speakers

• Ronnie Lipschutz, PhD, SM, Professor, Political Science Department, UC Santa Cruz
• Tamara Ball, PhD, Post-Doctoral Educational Researcher, The Institute for Science and Engineer Educators and The Sustainable Engineering and Ecological Design, UC Santa Cruz
• Hilary Nixon, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, San Jose State University
• Daniel M Fernandez, Professor and Chair, Division of Science and Environmental Policy, CSU Monterey Bay
• Karen Groppi, PE, Instructor, Engineering Department, Cabrillo Community College
• Michelle Y. Merrill, PhD, Instructor, Anthropology Department, Human Arts and Social Sciences Division, Cabrillo College
• Megan Tolbert, Transportation Planner, TRIPwise, CSU Monterey Bay

Moderator

• Mackenzie Crigger, Sustainability Manager, Chapman University