EAUC-S Conference 2018 - Learning & Teaching Decade Highlight - University of Strathclyde

The EAUC-Scotland 2018 Conference, A Decade of Progress, celebrated successes from the decade past, and visioned the decade ahead, to coincide with the EAUC-Scotland office’s 10 year anniversary.

Since 2008 Scotland has reached 2020 carbon reduction targets 6 years early, became one of the first nations to sign up to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and reached the stage where we can generate more than two-thirds of our electricity from renewable sources. Universities and colleges have been thriving in this landscape of sustainability progress over the past ten years.

Before the conference we asked the sector to vote for the sustainability projects that most inspired them over the last 10 years under 6 categories. Judging was undertaken to select a few of these projects to be showcased on the day. The projects highlighted are below:

• Behaviour Change - University of St Andrews, Transition University
• Campus Development and Utilities - University of Aberdeen, Passiv House Nursery
• Learning and Teaching - University of Strathclyde, Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development
• Living Labs - University of Edinburgh, Case Studies in Sustainable Development Module
• Resource Procurement and Lifecycle - Dundee & Angus College,  Waste to compost project
• Whole Institutional Approaches - South Lanarkshire College, Promoting Sustainable Behaviours as a Strategic Priority

Learning & Teaching Decade Highlight

University of Strathclyde's project Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development was selected as the Decade Highlight for Learning and Teaching. The presentation given on the day is available to download from the right of this page.

The Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development programme at the University of Strathclyde Development (presently being re-branded as Strathclyde Global Student) is a programme that engages undergraduates in research-based learning focusing on research challenges associated with SDGs. This teaching approach allows us to embed SDGs in the undergraduate curricula across our institution. We are keen to share this approach with other institutions interested in embedding SDGs in their curricula.

The programme aligns student research teams with SDGs. Each student project team is supervised by a combination of academics, researchers and PhD students. Teams are multi-disciplinary, involving students from the different faculties of Engineering, Science, Business and Humanities and Social Science (i.e. horizontally integrated) and are comprised of students from across all years of study (i.e. vertically integrated). Students can remain active in teams throughout their University studies (year 1 to 5). This allows teams to be sustainable and tackle long-term and ambitious research topics within the context of the SDGs.

These teams also have outreach arms that allow the project outcomes to deliver immediate and lasting impact in target communities. We have teams focusing on energy access issues in Sub-Saharan Africa,  Drinking Water Supply in SSA and more locally promotion of STEM in schools in traditionally low achieving areas of Glasgow.

The programme seeks to build on Strathclyde’s reputation as a socially progressive institution by seeking to actively:

• Embed these Global Goals within undergraduate curricula across our institution using VIP
• Mobilise and engage our undergraduate student community in SDG activity
• Link learning with outreach
• Encourage our students to invest in our core University values
• Inspire, educate and equip a new generation of graduates to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing our global society

______

EAUC-Scotland held their fifth conference on the 16th October 2018 at the City of Glasgow College. Find all resources from the Conference using the tag EAUCS2018, and find out more about the event on the Conference webpages.