Sustainability
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The Life-Giving Role of Field Work in Biology Courses
Summary: Explore how hands-on fieldwork in biology courses breathes life into learning, fostering deeper understanding and engagement with the natural world. Discover the transformative power of outdoor education! Date of publishing: February 28, 2024 Biology 228 at the University of Saskatchewan stands as a testament to the enduring value of field work in higher education. After a 10-year gap and a reduction in field components, this course which serves approximately 140 students has re-embraced experiential learning, recognizing its profound impact on student development. Led by seasoned lab educator Scott Halpin, whose expertise spans four decades, Biology 228 exemplifies the transformative power of hands-on experiences. By venturing outdoors, students transcend traditional…
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Instructional Strategies for Climate Justice
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Environmental Solutions Initiative has developed the Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit to enhance climate justice education. Aimed primarily at educators in introductory undergraduate courses, the toolkit provides resources and programming to integrate climate justice content and instructional approaches across various disciplines. The toolkit is openly licensed and includes adaptable teaching modules (with downloadable pptx files), instructional guides, and student resources. The toolkit focuses on climate justice—addressing the unequal impacts of climate change on vulnerable groups and identifying solutions. The proposed instructional strategies align with the University of Saskatchewan’s teaching practices for sustainability competencies and types of experiential learning. The initiative also encourages feedback and collaboration for…
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To Be What the World Needs, We Need to Bring the World Into the Classroom
Summary: Bring global perspectives into your classroom! Learn how integrating diverse viewpoints can enrich learning and prepare students for a connected world. Date of publishing: November 14, 2023 The global lockdown of 2020 showed us that learning doesn’t require desks and a lectern. If the activities could be done in isolation (listening, reading, answering test questions), then why should students opt into classroom learning? Yet, there is immense value in gathering and interacting with each other. Thus, what we choose to do in these classroom spaces matters. Educators can contextualize their disciplines and helps students make meaning of their developing knowledge and skills by bringing external thoughts, processes, and contexts…
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Inbox Assignment
Summary: Transform your teaching with Inbox Assignments! Engage students and boost learning outcomes through real-world email scenarios. Explore this innovative approach now. Date of publishing: August 16, 2023 How’s your email inbox looking today? This can be a stressful question! We each have different ways of addressing projects but the reality is that email often plays a huge role in how we manage our to-do list. How do we prepare students for this career reality? Simulating a project via an inbox is a way to make a case study more authentic. Case-based learning helps students address a complex problem. Students often work in small teams each with a different role…
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USask Sustainability Fellows Leading the Way
For the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of co-facilitating the first of the two years of the Sustainability Faculty Fellowship sessions with Aditi Garg. There are six Faculty Fellows, each bringing different experiences, ideas, and perspectives to the group. The Faculty Fellows are: Tate Cao from Engineering Kate Congreves from Agriculture and Bioresources (Plant Sciences) Shannon Forrester from Kinesiology Brooke Klassen from Edwards School of Business Eric Micheels from Agriculture and Bioresources (Agriculture and Resource Economics) Ulrich Teucher from Arts and Science Year One We began with a meet-and-greet breakfast in mid-May and followed that with seven two-hour sessions over four weeks during which we discussed aspects of…
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SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals – Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Learning
This blog post is part of a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. By providing this blog post series, we hope to elicit some ideas of how you might also integrate a global goal into your teaching. Please refer to the USask SDG Teaching & Learning Workbook, review the USask Sustainability in the Curricula website, or scroll down for more information about the…
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SDG 16 Peace and Justice, Strong Institutions – Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Learning
This blog post is part of a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. By providing this blog post series, we hope to elicit some ideas of how you might also integrate a global goal into your teaching. Please refer to the USask SDG Teaching & Learning Workbook, review the USask Sustainability in the Curricula website, or scroll down for more information about the…
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SDG 15 Life On Land – Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Learning
This blog post is part of a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. By providing this blog post series, we hope to elicit some ideas of how you might also integrate a global goal into your teaching. Please refer to the USask SDG Teaching & Learning Workbook, review the USask Sustainability in the Curricula website, or scroll down for more information about the…
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SDG 14 Life Below Water – Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Learning
This blog post is part of a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. By providing this blog post series, we hope to elicit some ideas of how you might also integrate a global goal into your teaching. Please refer to the USask SDG Teaching & Learning Workbook, review the USask Sustainability in the Curricula website, or scroll down for more information about the…
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SDG 13 Climate Action – Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Learning
This blog post is part of a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion that any course or class can connect with one of the 17 goals or 169 sub-targets. By providing this blog post series, we hope to elicit some ideas of how you might also integrate a global goal into your teaching. Please refer to the USask SDG Teaching & Learning Workbook, review the USask Sustainability in the Curricula website, or scroll down for more information about the…