Innovative Practices for Sustainability Leadership

Short Description:
Developing Change Agents examines the role of academia in creating the next generation of sustainability leaders. Delving into strategies to transform higher education, this volume empowers universities to develop change agents who can scale solutions to meet the wicked environmental, social, and political challenges of the present and future. Developing Change Agents advances a revolutionary perspective on the way academia functions from the administrative hierarchies to faculty, and the classroom and to deep engagement in the communities where the solutions must be co-created. This book works to find a transdisciplinary, effective method of tackling the world’s issues with reference to emotional intelligence, diversity, community, and reward structures and supports a tailored, reflexive approach based upon each university’s diverse and unique students, faculty, programs, and communities. From the ANGLES NETWORK: A Network for Graduate Leadership in Sustainability

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Through this activity, students in a liberal arts mathematics class will develop experience with real-world statistical concepts through the context of sustainability: estimation, survey writing, sampling techniques, and data analysis.

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This is an advanced seminar that will analyze the effectiveness of development and planning theories from the perspective of practitioners who implement projects and policies based on such theories. The ultimate goal is to create new planning sensibilities, which theorize from practice, not the other way around.

Students gain an understanding of the factors that affect wind turbine operation. Following the steps of the engineering design process, engineering teams use simple materials (cardboard and wooden dowels) to build and test their own turbine blade prototypes with the objective of maximizing electrical power output for a hypothetical situation—helping scientists power their electrical devices while doing research on a remote island. Teams explore how blade size, shape, weight and rotation interact to achieve maximal performance, and relate the power generated to energy consumed on a scale that is relevant to them in daily life. A PowerPoint® presentation, worksheet and post-activity test are provided.

How does infrastructure meet our needs? What happens when we are cut off from that supporting infrastructure? As a class, students brainstorm, identify and explore the pathways where their food, water and energy originate, and where wastewater and solid waste go. After creating a diagram that maps a neighborhood's inputs and waste outputs, closed and open system concepts are introduced by imagining the neighborhood enclosed in a giant dome, cut off from its infrastructure systems. Students consider the implications and the importance of sustainable resource and waste management. They learn that resources are interdependent and that recycling wastes into resources is key to sustain a closed system.

Student teams find solutions to hypothetical challenge scenarios that require them to sustainably manage both resources and wastes. They begin by creating a card representing themselves and the resources (inputs) they need and wastes (outputs) they produce. Then they incorporate additional cards for food and energy components and associated necessary resources and waste products. They draw connections between outputs that provide inputs for other needs, and explore the problem of using linear solutions in resource-limited environments. Then students incorporate cards based on biorecycling technologies, such as algae photobioreactors and anaerobic digesters in order to make circular connections. Finally, the student teams present their complete biorecycling engineering solutions to their scenarios in poster format by connecting outputs to inputs, and showing the cycles of how wastes become resources.

In our european project “Circular Economy as a tool to develop an innovative eco-inclusive social entrepreneurship educational pattern for youth" cofunded by Erasmus+, the partnership developed a competency framework and report combining data and information from 6 partner countries, designed to inform Young people and Youth workers interested in Social Entrepreneurship through Circular Economy, including 7 key competences to embark on a Social Entrepreneurship endeavour through Circular Economy models.

All languages versions are available and downloable here: https://ecocircleproject.com/results/

We are now developping a course on circular economy that you will find very soon online!

The partnership is composed by:
- CDE Petra Patrimonia
- APS Polygonal
- Smartup N.B. Systematic Management S.L.
- MEUSkills
- Stichting Social DNA
- Olemisen Balanssia RY
- Mednarodni institut za implementacijo trajnostnega razvoja

Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) is an initiative that provides third-party verification of the performance claims made by technology manufacturers. By using Statement of Verification, which is the product of a successful ETV process, ETV provides credible information on the new technology.7ETV4INNOVATION has been a two-and-a-half long EC funded VET Strategic Partnership project under Erasmus + programme. It has been designed with the aim to support the development and the implementation of an innovative practice and a new training path in the field of Environmental Technology Verification (ETV). ETV4INNOVATION course includes three modules:Basic aspects of verification of environmental technologyThe ETV program as a commercial tool on domestic and international marketsPractical aspects of the ETV verification

Rapid changes at Earth's surface, largely in response to human activity, have led to the realization that fundamental questions remain to be answered regarding the natural functioning of the Critical Zone, the thin veneer at Earth's surface where the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere interact. EARTH 530 will introduce you to the basics necessary for understanding Earth surface processes in the Critical Zone through an integration of various scientific disciplines. Those who successfully complete EARTH 530 will be able to apply their knowledge of fundamental concepts of Earth surface processes to understanding outstanding fundamental questions in Critical Zone science and how their lives are intimately linked to Critical Zone health.

How big is your ecological footprint? This case will assist students in quantifying this construct and allow them to reflect on life styles and alternative approaches that can help them reduce their ecological impacts.

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The major goal of this lesson is to provide students with some of the tools they will need to analyze and solve the many complex problems they will face during their lifetimes. In the lesson, students learn to use Flow Charts and Feedback Diagrams to analyze a very complex problem of ecological sustainability. The lesson looks at a specific case study—from my home town in the Philippines—of the Live Reef Fish Trade now threatening survival of the Coral Reef Triangle of Southeast Asia. Live reef fish have long been traded around Southeast Asia as a luxury food item, but in recent decades trade in fish captured on coral reefs has expanded rapidly. Although the trade has provided communities with additional income, these benefits are unsustainable and have come at considerable cost to the environment. This lesson begins by having students analyze a familiar or personal problem, using Flow Charts and Feedback Diagrams, and then moves on to the application of those tools to a complex environmental problem. The lesson could be completed in a 50-minute class session, but using it over two class sessions would be preferable. Everything needed for the lesson is downloadable from the BLOSSOMS website, including blank Flow Charts and Feedback Diagrams, as well as articles on the Philippines case study from the World Wildlife Fund and the United States Agency for International Development.

Why are we overfishing the oceans? Why are we cutting trees faster than they're growing? Why did the Easter Islanders resort to cannibalism? And how did an economics professor dad stop his teenage sons from wasting his whole paycheck on soda pop? It turns out that all of these are examples of the Tragedy of the Commons. This economic theory explains why, when a resource is collectively owned, there is no incentive to use it sustainably. This explains why many natural resources are depleted, even though that makes everyone worse off.

Choice of material has implications throughout the life-cycle of a product, influencing many aspects of economic and environmental performance. This course will provide a survey of methods for evaluating those implications. Lectures will cover topics in material choice concepts, fundamentals of engineering economics, manufacturing economics modeling methods, and life-cycle environmental evaluation.

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Building design strongly influences the quantity of heating, cooling and electricity needed during building operation. Therefore, a correct thermal design is essential to achieve low energy and low carbon buildings, with good indoor air quality.

This course will enable you to understand the basic principles of the energy chain: demand, supply and distribution; and how they relate to design principles for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.

Second, you will discover what type of heat losses and gains take place in buildings’ operations. You will learn how to estimate these flows using simple meteorological data and construction properties. You will acquire knowledge on how to estimate heat transfer through construction, ventilation, solar radiation or caused by internal sources or heat storage in the construction.

Third, you will learn to make estimates of buildings’ energy needs on an hourly basis by using simple static energy balances: how much energy comes in and out and which air temperature is needed? When is there heating or cooling? How much electricity is needed?

Fourth, you will discover how to extend your estimates to yearly energy demand, which is essential to make sure that a building is energy efficient and to estimate energy savings and energy costs. You will then also be able to determine the size of the needed heating and cooling equipment (which determines the costs of equipment).

Finally, you will learn how to optimize building design and will be able to find out the optimal window size or the optimum insulation thickness for your building. You will know why putting windows on the south façade is not always energy-efficient. You will understand the thermal interactions between building components and be able to make informed decisions on how to increase the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to choose low carbon energy supply, how to create a comfortable indoor environment, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems.

With increasing public awareness of the multiple effects of global environmental change, the terms water, energy, and food crisis have become widely used in scientific and political debates on sustainable development and environmental policy. Although each of these crises has distinct drivers and consequences, providing sustainable supplies of water, energy, and food are deeply interrelated challenges and require a profound understanding of the political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that have historically shaped these interrelations at a local and global scale.

In this course, you will discover the supply side of buildings’ energy chain.

The first step is to consider how to convert natural resources into the energy needed by buildings: what are the options to create heat, cold and electricity? You will learn about efficiency and use this concept to estimate building’s primary energy use and carbon emissions. This concept is widely used in many national and international policies and building regulations, and is essential to counteract climate change.

You will study the performances of single heating systems like electrical heating, gas, or renewables like biomass, solar boilers and geothermal heat, followed by single cooling systems like evaporative cooling and environmental cold.

We will also examine the systems that concurrently produce heat and cold. Do you know for instance that a heat pump and a cooling machine are identical devices? You will learn about the basic working principles of heat pumps and how to make sure they achieve high performance levels. After this course you will know how an Aquifer Thermal Storage makes smart use of the ground to deliver cold in summer and heat in winter.

Diverse electricity generation methods using turbines (wind, hydro), photovoltaics or hydrogen fuel cells will also be examined. You will learn how cogeneration of heat and power works and why this is important for the rational use of energy resources. You will also know why heat pumps are often combined with boilers or to which extent it is worth to invest in batteries for your solar panels.

By the end of the course you will be able to decide on how to combine energy conversion systems at building level in order to match buildings’ energy demand while keeping costs acceptable, using a minimum of natural resources and producing a minimum of carbon emissions.

This course is part of the program Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to design buildings with low energy demand, how to create a comfortable indoor environment, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems.

What is energy? It's the hot in heat, the glow in light, the push in wind, the pound in water, the sound of thunder and the crack of lightening. It is the pull that keeps us (and everything else!) from simply flying apart, and the promise of an oak deep in an acorn. It is all the same, and it is all different. Sunshine and waterfalls won't start your car, and wind won't run the dishwasher. But, if we match the form and timing of the energy with your needs, all of these things could be true. Energy in a Changing World is about the full arc of energy transformation, delivery, use, economics and environmental impact, especially climate change.

Campus Climate Conversations are designed to be both educational and "deliberative," meaning students, staff, and faculty interact with one another in small groups to share views and ideas about climate action strategies. This activity is structured to enhance education and engagement, and to generate collaborative climate action strategies.

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Students begin by reading Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" as an example of how overdevelopment can cause long-lasting environmental destruction. Students discuss how to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of human industry. Student teams are asked to serve as natural resource engineers, city planning engineers and civil engineers with the task to replant the nearly destroyed forest and develop a sustainable community design that can co-exist with the re-established natural area.