Sustainability Education
Dr. Jennifer Watt, Director of Sustainability Education at the University of Utah, and her team of researchers are interested in understanding faculty and student perspectives on the integration of sustainability across the curricula. Based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Watt recognizes that sustainability learning is a vital part of every discipline. At the University of Utah, sustainability education is a critical part of implementing the Climate Action Plan.
A data-driven approach is foundational to Dr. Watt’s integration planning. Dr. Watt and her research team are conducting focus groups with faculty and students from the engineering, nursing, and environmental and sustainability studies that will inform gaps and successes in sustainability education integration.
As an element of the SPARC lab programming, students have engaged in qualitative research with both faculty and other students in each of these departments. Faculty focus groups are centered around disciplinary purposes as well as motivations,barriers, and common topics for integrating sustainability into their courses. Student focus groups include questions around how sustainability is understood and applied as described in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Beyond understanding faculty and student perspectives and fulfilling the requirements of the climate action plan, these data will help us in achieving a higher rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. These rankings are proving increasingly in students’ criteria for selecting colleges and universities across the United States.
The research team includes Dr. Jennifer Watt (School of Environment, Society, and Sustainability), Dr. Adrienne Cachelin (School of Environment, Society, and Sustainability), Dr. David Wagner (Chemical Engineering) and Dr. Debolina Banerjee (Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University). Undergraduate students Rachel Condon, Margeaux Rice and Kaitlynn Ricks are all playing pivotal roles in data collection and analysis.
