Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 18

18 | JADE
ARTICLE #1 | 19
TRACKING SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS IN GEOLOGY AND
EARTH SCIENCE TEACHING AND LEARNING, KEELE UNIVERSITY, UK
STEVEN L. ROGERS, STUART S. EGAN, & IAN G. STIMPSON
10. Reduce Inequalities: Reduce inequality within and among
countries
11.
Sustainable Cities and Communities: Make cities and human
settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Ensure sustainable
consumption and production patterns
13. Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change
and its impacts
14. Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, sea
and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Life on Land: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of
terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt
biodiversity loss
Figure 1: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (From United
Nations, 2015). These are the seventeen goals which form the SDGs, each
goal has specific targets to be achieved by 2030 with the aim of ending
poverty, protecting the planet and providing prosperity for all. Each goal is
expanded in Table 1.
1. No Poverty: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. Zero Hunger: End hunger, achieve food security and improved
nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Good Health and Well-Being: Ensure healthy lives and promote
well-being for all at all ages
4. Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality
education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all
5. Gender Equality: Achieve gender equality and empower all
women and girls
6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Ensure availability and sustainable
management of water for all
7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Ensure access to affordable,
reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth: Promote sustained,
inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Build resilient
infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation
and foster innovation
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: Promote peaceful and
inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access
to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels
17. Partnerships for the Goals: Strengthen the means of
implementation and revitalise the global partnership for
sustainable development
Table 1: A brief description of each Sustainable Development Goal (United
Nations, 2015)
As suggested in the introduction, there is a strong link between
Geology and Earth Sciences, and sustainability concepts, so it is no
surprise that most of our modules have some aspect or theme that
can be linked to a UN SDG (Table 2). Only two modules have no
identified links; these are both method driven modules. There are
several modules which have Explicit links, for example ESC-10036
Planet Earth is explicitly linked with SDG13 (Climate Action); within
the module the Earth's formation and evolution is introduced,
providing students with a solid background of what climate change
is, and some of the causes and effects associated with it. The
visual matrix also highlights that there is a module in each FHEQ
level (4-6) that could be considered as a “flagship” module: ESC-
10048 The Earth System, ESC-20037 Geoscience and Society and
ESC-30038 Geological Communication Skills; indeed, the two later
modules explicitly include reference to sustainability in their module
descriptions. The number of Moderate and Vague links are quite high
for a number of modules, these links include topics such as global
mineral distribution, reservoir quality of rocks and sea level change.
Whilst these (and many more topics) are taught, their links with