Sustainability in the curriculum

Dr Katherine Haxton's module Sustainable Chemistry was featured in the NUS 'A-Z of Sustainability' guide. The Sustainable Chemistry module covers many topics in sustainability, from health care to food and water security, and was presented at 'Variety in Chemistry Education' and 'Horizons in STEM Education' in 2016.

Chemistry also embeds education for sustainable development in many other modules, covering topics such as 'chemistry that changed the world', 'chemistry without carbon', green and sustainable chemistry, including student presentations on the '12 principles of green chemistry' or 'greening an industrial process', and issues relating to recycling of e-waste, and rare earth metal resources covered in the chemistry of technology. Third year projects have also featured sustainability issues, and projects on developing new catalysts for more efficient and greener chemical processes.

Sustainability is a key aspect of psychological literacy and is embedded in many areas within the curriculum.

For instance, students apply psychology to thinking about ways in which environmentally-friendly behaviours can be encouraged. Ecopsychology covers the relationship between nature and human wellbeing, and the importance of nature for wellbeing are covered in modules from 1st to 3rd year as well as in the MSc in Psychology of Health and Wellbeing, and MSc Counselling and Psychotherapy, and sessions of Ecotherapy are also run by specialists in this area, as well as nature-based exercises embedded within the programme.

Students on the MSc Psychology programmes complete a CV audit, considering all aspects of their personal development as a researcher, including a section on sustainability issues, skills and experience.

The Geology undergraduate programme at Keele has mapped their programme content against the UN Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting links between geology and a more sustainable future. The programme includes a module on Geoscience and Society, which includes sessions on geodiversity, geo-conservation and geo-heritage. The role of geology in low carbon energy is included in the course including geothermal energy, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration, as well as exploration of sustainability issues of resource extraction. Sustainability issues are also a key part of the rest of the School's undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

The school embeds sustainability in its programmes in many different ways, including mathematical modelling of sustainability issues such as population growth, renewable energy, and human impacts on ecosystems.

Since 2015, Computing offers level 6 students a list of sustainability projects to be carried out with a university 'client' (from a range of sustainability academic and estates staff) who proposes a sustainability project, for example, a website to help urban farmers and community gardeners to measure and improve the impact of their work, to aid the worldwide collation of this information from participating proejcts. In 2017, as part of the MSc Collaborative Application Development module, students created a website and an app to help the Student Sustainability Bungalow manage their recycling.

Throughout the Biology programme there is much use of the campus grounds for all years of undergraduate students, for example through modules such as Biodiversity, Ecology and Environment; Conservation Biology; and Trees in their Environment.

In addition, undergraduate students on all Life Science programmes are required to engage with sustainability. Following a session covering a range of sustainability focused issues, second year students are required in an assessment to consider the sustainability implications of their proposed third year research.

Sustainability is tackled in many programmes in the School of Health and Rehabilitation in different ways. The BSc in Rehabilitation Science includes a focus on health and wellbeing and evaluation of national strategies to promote the public health agenda. The BSc Physiotherapy and Radiography programmes are working with Practice Educators and Clinical Placement Facilitators to verify the contemporary nature of their programme/s and make recommendations to optimise a sustainable curriculum.

The Adult Nursing course covers sustainability issues in many different ways, from investigation of issues of waste generated in the clinical skills lab, and the environmental impacts of waste, as well as issues of climate change and health nationally and globally, social determinants of health links with mental health, and sustainability issues relating to procurement and commissioning within the NHS.

The medical school integrates sustainability topics into its problem based learning courses and has several lectures in years 1 and 2 which highlight health issues relating to environmental and sustainability themes.

In addition, in year 1, topics around sustainability are made available for students to select for their independent literature review.

In year 3 students are given a lecture and workshop session on sustainability issues in the NHS including food waste, recycling surgical materials, prescription drug wastage, and energy and carbon demands through travel. Students work in groups to identify the issues and think of ways to solve or ease them. They are encouraged to draw on examples they have seen in their practice. The learning and teaching delivered in year 3 were developed and shared with the Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) Network and is included in their paper on embedding sustainability into medical students' curriculum. 

Topics covering sustainability in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry have been embedded within the MPharm and BSc programmes operated by the School of Pharmacy for many years including sustainable pharmacy practice, medicines wastage, the carbon footprint of drug discovery and development, ways to reduce this using 'green' manufacturing and formulation methods, packaging and recycling.

Students studying the BSc in Pharmaceutical Science, Technology and Business programme currently have eight core sessions in their Level 5 curriculum which are devoted to sustainability in the pharmaceutical industry. This includes in-depth studies in: process chemistry, application of 'green' chemistry and biotransformation in process development, the holistic manufacturing process, and regulatory aspects of products and packaging in comparison to more sustainable options.

Sustainability and environmental issues feature in the diverse undergraduate programmes of the School of Humanities in many different ways. For example, in English, environmental issues are central to a module on 'Writingscapes' in which students produce their own creative writing in response to the natural and social environments, which Eco-criticism is also covered, covering such topics as how lyric poetry redefined how the natural world was viewed, and a module on 'Writing at the Borders: Migrant and Refugee Narratives' includes considerations of ecological disasters.

Environmental history is a central theme to the study of the past at Keele in the History programme. A module on 'Natural Cultures: Humans and their Environments since 1700' explores environmental history and the social and cultural changes that have led to the current unprecedented human-generated environmental change, and how environmentalism emerged through cultural response to it. Environmental history is also incorporated into a number of different modules at different levels of study.

Several staff who contribute to the undergraduate programme in Media, Communication and Culture have environmental and sustainability specialisms, and incorporate environmental and social justice issues into their teaching, including looking at representations of animals and the environment in different media, and critical exploration of awareness campaigns.

The school has a long history of environmental research and teaching, and many staff with specialisms in this area.

Several specialist environmental modules are included in both the Politics and International Relations programmes, for example a first-year module on Politics of Sustainability; 2nd year modules on Environmental Politics and Policy, and International Relations of the Environment, and third year modules on Environmentalism, Environmental Movements and Protest; Environmental Politics in the USA; and the Northern Dimension: Resources, Environment and Security in the Arctic.

Sustainability and environmental issues play a prominent role in many of the undergraduate programmes run from the School of Social Science and Public Policy. Issues of consumerism and consumption are focused on in several modules, as well as issues of globalisation and social equity within Sociology.

Within the Criminology programme students have the opportunity to consider issues of crime and sustainability in a third year module on 'Environmental Crimes'. In the Education programme students can choose to explore issues relating to Education for Sustainability in a module on 'Educating for Global Citizenship'.

Students can take part in the CLOCK (Community Legal Outreach Collaboration Keele) initiative which was founded in 2012 by Keele Law School and North Staffordshire law firms, Citizens Advice Bureau, domestic and sexual violence support groups, housing associations, and family relationship services.

CLOCK provide their professional expertise working with marginalised and vulnerable people to help them gain access to justice. CLOCK established a national partnership framework in 2015 with Higher Education institutions, law firms, and third sector organisations to offer their services across the UK.

Students can participate in CLOCK to provide policy work, legal research, and community legal education services to disadvantaged communities whilst developing their employability skills. 

Sustainability is a popular topic for inclusion in the different Language modules taught from Keele's Language Centre.

For example, environmental change in the natural and urban environment is taught in Japanese modules.

The education for sustainability team has also worked in partnership with staff in the Language Centre to devise assessments to make students engage with environmental and sustainability topics, while improving their language skills, and pre-sessional English course students, can choose sustainability topics for assessments to help them develop their English skills.