SCC Webinar – Competencies and Pedagogies for Sustainability Education

Sustainability studies educators in colleges and universities must identify and teach the knowledge, skills, and abilities their graduates will most need to advance sustainability while confronting perhaps the most serious, sweeping, and integrated set of challenges humanity has ever known. Drawing upon her recently published article “Competencies and Pedagogies for Sustainability Education: A Roadmap for Sustainability Studies Program Development in Colleges and Universities” <https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5526>, Evans articulates and describes a set of five competencies for the sustainability field and suggests potentially effective pedagogies for teaching them. Findings from her article in the areas of both competencies and pedagogies for sustainability education imply the benefits of integrative, active, collaborative, and applied approaches to curriculum development and teaching—approaches that directly involve students in learning and practicing transdisciplinary engagement in service to sustainability.

The Bachelor of Arts in Sustainability Studies program at Colorado Mountain College serves as an example of how her articulated competency framework is being applied to evaluate and enhance curriculum and learning outcomes. The competency framework and pedagogical recommendations offered may also serve as roadmaps for educators at other institutions who prepare graduates to address the pressing challenges of sustainability evident in communities, nations, and the world.

Dr. Tina Lynn Evans is a Professor of Sustainability Studies at Colorado Mountain College (CMC) where she teaches in the Bachelor of Arts program in that field. She is also the author of Occupy Education: Living and Learning Sustainability (2012, Peter Lang). Dr. Evans has led and participated in extensive course and program development efforts in environmental and sustainability studies for more than 15 years. She focuses much of her teaching on sustainability theory and practice, socio-cultural aspects of sustainability, sustainable economics, energy issues in society, permaculture design, and career development in sustainability. Her recent publications focus on sustainability competencies and pedagogies, sustainable leadership, hope and agency in sustainability education, and transdisciplinary theory and practice. Evans was awarded the 2017 Campus Sustainability Research Award from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education for her article “Finding Heart: Generating and Maintaining Hope and Agency through Sustainability Education” (Journal of Sustainability Education, November 2017). That same year, she was also named college-wide faculty of the year at Colorado Mountain College. Evans also serves as the lead designer and implementer of the Bear Park Permaculture Center at the Steamboat Springs campus of CMC. Bear Park is a two-thirds acre site that serves as a living laboratory for permaculture, sustainability studies, environmental science, culinary arts, art, and other academic programs.