Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 26

26 | JADE
ARTICLE #1 | 27
TRACKING SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS IN GEOLOGY AND
EARTH SCIENCE TEACHING AND LEARNING, KEELE UNIVERSITY, UK
STEVEN L. ROGERS, STUART S. EGAN, & IAN G. STIMPSON
The Biosphere
8
9
The Earth-Life System I
(Lecture) 14, 15
Overview of the biosphere and how it
relies on other components of the Earth
System.
The Earth-Life System II
(Lecture) 14, 15 Mass Extinctions (Online/virtual
Lecture) 14, 15 Evidence for and against a current (sixth)
Extinction Level Event.
Global Biogeography and
Biomes (Lecture) 2, 15 The effects of human intervention on
global patterns in the biosphere.
Soils: the link between geology
and the living skin (Lecture) 2, 6, 15 Soil as a reservoir for water and its
controls on water quality.
The Anthroposphere
10
11
12
Climate Change (Lecture)
Future Work
This sustainability audit has been a catalyst for the further embedding
and tracking of sustainability concepts into our courses, as well as
the appropriate linkages being formed between SDGs. Whilst it is
positive that we can link so much of our teaching to the SDGs, it
is necessary that we continue to strive to create students that can
understand and appreciate these concepts, and the need for them.
Our students should have the skills to interact with individuals and
groups from other disciplines, understand their arguments, and
deliver Geological sciences in an accessible and understandable
manner. In order to align our teaching with the SDGs further we plan
on taking the following steps:
1. Include a “Sustainability Statement” (outlining major themes,
issues and linking SDGs) to each FHEQ level module handbook;
1, 2, 3, 6,
12, 13, 14,
3, 15 Perspectives on natural versus
anthropogenic climate forcing factors. Ozone Depletion (Lecture) 17 Links between ozone depletion and
health. 3. Explore the possibility of a “Social Geology” (or similarly named)
route through our degree structure;
Natural Resources (Lecture) 8, 9, 14, 15 Overview of physical, biological and
environmental resources. Resource Depletion: Causes,
implications and Solutions
(Lecture) 1, 2, 3, 6, 7,
11, 12, 14, 15 The Peak Oil Theory. 4. Reflect on these implementations, particularly on how the
embedding of individual SDGs link to one another throughout the
duration of our degree courses, and disseminate as necessary.
2. Emphasise the links to SDGs module descriptions and in available
module teaching activities and materials;
5. Encourage students to establish a Geology for Global Development
university group as part of the wider GfGD network.
Revision workshop
Table 3: A week-by-week overview of the content of the Earth System
module with links to the UN’s SDGs summarised in Table 1.
of, water resource utilisation, energy and material production and
use, including alternatives; air, land and water pollution; approaches
to, and limitations of environmental management systems; role
of institutions in regulation and management of the environment;
environmental policy formulation, legislation and decision making”
(QAA 2007). The module covers a wide range of topics from
geoscience and health (SDG3), geohazards and mitigation such as
earthquake resilience of buildings (SDG11), geodiversity including
conservation strategies (SDGs4, 14–17), agriculture (SDG1 & 2) and
water (SDG6). It looks at the future of oil, gas and coal, clean energy
such as geothermal (SDG7) and the technologies of carbon capture
and storage (SDG9), as well as nuclear waste management (SDG13),
the solutions to which are almost entirely geological. The students
research and present on the occurrence, reserves and sustainability
of mineral resources (SDG8 & 12) and work in the field on the practical
aspects of geoconservation and how to communicate these issues
to the public.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the rest of the ‘geology team’ at
Keele for their support of this ongoing project. We would also like to
thank our students for module feedback.
References
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Blättel-Mink, B. and Kastenholz, H., 2005. Transdisciplinarity in sustainability
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International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology. Vol 12.
Pg. 1-12.
Christie, B.A., Miller, K.K., Cooke, R. and White, J.G., 2013. Environmental
sustainability in higher education: how do academics teach?. Environmental
Education Research, 19, pp.385-414.
Gill, J.C., 2016. Geology and the sustainable development goals. Episodes. Vol
40. pg 70-76.