Green Gown Awards 2014 - Courses and Learning - Dumfries and Galloway College - Finalist

Linking environmental issues to the care curriculum

Education for sustainable development was utilised to address environmental and health concerns within the existing care curriculum framework. This work was then linked to volunteering for Macmillan Cancer Support by acknowledging the links between environmental and social problems and how they may lead to health issues, both locally and globally. As well as the potential negative health impacts of climate change, the students were also interested in environmental and social stressors as cancer inducers.

The volunteering work conducted by the students included a number of events from head shaving to a bake sale and band evening which meant sustainability was highlighted across the wider campus and community.

The end result being that nearly £800 was raised for Macmillan and the students achieved a sustainability qualification – the College developed Introduction to Sustainability unit which has been credit rated through the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework – in addition to their course qualification.

Top 3 learnings

1 Embed education for sustainable development into the curriculum by making links to existing coursework wherever possible to reduce workloads
2 Education for sustainable development can be used as an effective tool for core skills learning and teaching
3 Education for sustainable development should be utilised as an important employability skill.