Sustainability Action Assignment
This assignment asks students to experience and learn something new by taking action that promotes sustainability in the community, to situate this new knowledge in the frameworks of sustainability that are being learned in class, and to create an output in the format of students' own choosing that functions as public outreach. This assignment therefore fits into the key learning objectives of the course around self-reflection and application of course learnings to experiences of sustainability.
Assignment background?: A key part of sustainability is community engagement and taking action that contributes to sustainability. While learning about the background, history, and theoretical frameworks of sustainability is important, engagement outside of the classroom is also essential. This assignment also stems from responding to student feedback that they wanted an opportunity to engage in activities as part of the course. This assignment therefore combines a focus on student experience with concrete sustainable action. This assignment will also provide some scaffolding for your personal sustainability assignment. Assignment description?: Students must attend or participate in an event, activity, club, etc., relating to sustainability. They may focus on any of the four pillars of sustainability that they are interested in: environmental, social, cultural, or economic. Students then must summarize their experience and relate it to themes of the course in a form that is made for public distribution. The student outputs will then be posted on a public SUST 201 website.
Example activities:? Some examples of activities that students may attend or participate in include: speaking to the owner of a local food or other business, volunteering with a food bank or other sustainability-focused organization, trying to make sustainable life changes for a period of time (for example, only biking or walking for a week), use a habit tracking app for a month, participating in an Office of Sustainability event, helping start a community garden, spending an afternoon in a crafting session at kihêw waciston, attending an Edmonton Public Library program, attending a sustainability-related film festival, visiting an art show, picking up trash in the River Valley, or more. Important to note?: these are just suggestions, and we encourage students to choose their own activity in terms of whatever interests them about sustainability. Volunteering that students already do may also be considered for the assignment. Outputs and Submission: ?Once students have completed their activity, students must summarize the activity and discuss how it relates to sustainability as outlined in class. The resulting output should take a form that the student feels best communicates their experience and thoughts in a way that is easy for the public to understand. For example?, this could be a blog post, an infographic, an Instagram account, a photovoice, video project, or other.
The response should include a reference list. Double-space, using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, one-inch margins, and APA style of writing and citations.