Teaching Sustainability: Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences - Paperback

by Wendy Petersen-Boring (Editor), William Forbes (Editor)

From the Foreword by David Orr: ". . . T]he authors here describe a curriculum of applied hope. No discipline is exempt from the effort to extend awareness of our implicatedness in the world, and from the effort to create a better future than that in prospect. As scholars and teachers, they are responding to the intellectual and moral imperatives of "the long emergency.". . . The overwhelming fact of our time is that life on Earth is in peril, humans are the cause, and that no amount of tinkering at the margin of the status quo will do. We have every reason to reexamine our beliefs, worldviews, institutions, cultural foundations, and manner of living - and get down to work."

Sustainability education is increasingly taking a lead role in transforming the landscape of higher education, serving as a catalyst for the integration of cutting edge pedagogical practices, including project and problem-based learning, multidisciplinary learning, and transformative and collaborative education. This book documents innovative pedagogical approaches to infusing sustainability into the curriculum in the humanities and social sciences on college campuses ranging from small liberal arts colleges to major research institutions. Three sections include: 1) Conceptual Frameworks: Sustainability's Challenges to Traditional Curriculum, Disciplinary Frameworks, and Educational Paradigms; 2) In the Classroom: Case Studies and Innovative Pedagogies; 3) The Campus as Site for Place-Based Learning.

Neil Weissman, Provost and Professor of History at Dickinson College, writes: "The essays in this collection are richly diverse. . . .Like sustainability itself, the volume infuses theory with practical application. The contributors demonstrate the ways in which a single course can serve as a powerful change agent for an entire campus, how to build bridges between faculty and administrators, and even how to move forward on modest budgets. Teaching Sustainability provides a valuable conceptual and practical toolbox for faculty, students, and administrators to (as David Orr notes in the foreword) 'get down to work.'"

Author Biography

Wendy Petersen Boring, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she teaches pre-modern European history, women and gender studies, and sustainability studies. She served as Chair of Willamette's Sustainability Council for three years and currently teaches food systems and ethics at Willamette's Zena Farm Summer Institute in Sustainable Agriculture. She has presented nationally and regionally on integrating sustainability into the humanities and has published articles on sustainability pedagogy. Her research focuses on issues in late medieval philosophy, gender, and spirituality. She earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University.

WILLIAM FORBES is an Associate Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for a Livable World at Stephen F. Austin State University. He teaches classes in world regional geography, biogeography, economic geography, physical geography, political geography, and study abroad. Dr. Forbes received his Ph.D., M.S., and M.A. from the University of North Texas and a B.S. and B.A. from Humboldt State University. His dissertation revisited Mexico's Rio Gavilan, where "perfect" land health was noted by conservationist Aldo Leopold in the 1930s. Dr. Forbes publishes research on historical-environmental geography and environmental ethics. The Center for a Livable World is a new research center on humanities and social science aspects of sustainability, so far producing two anthologies and an interdisciplinary pilot project that examined livability of a small East Texas city.