As Aalto University continues to target sustainability as a core theme, teachers seek ways to incorporate sustainability concepts into their courses.
While Aalto teachers value sustainability, some struggle to include sustainability concepts in their courses. Adapting courses to include sustainability without redesigning the entire course is a good first step.
Aalto’s Håkan Mitts and Tuomo Eloranta have developed a workshop that offers teachers tools to integrate sustainability topics into existing courses. The method they share provides a practical, straightforward solution, focusing on small, manageable ideas that can lead to meaningful sustainability integration over time.
The workshop was developed with the mission of inspiring teachers to think creatively about their role in preparing Aalto graduates to handle sustainability-related decisions early in their careers.
Håkan Mitts“We don’t want you to teach sustainability. We want you to equip students with sustainability competencies in their field… You can begin by trying to predict the questions that land on their table when they hit the job market.”
The three-step method for sustainability integration into courses
Workshop participants leave with specific, meaningful and implementable ideas that align with their teaching goals and sustainability integration.
Essentially, the core steps to integrate sustainability into an existing course are:
If you’re a teacher who wants to integrate sustainability into your course but is confused about where to start, please contact the Aalto Co-Educator for a bespoke workshop for your team. To dive deeper into the method, see the article below for a detailed breakdown of the 3-steps.
Teachers are interested in sustainability integration but are sometimes unsure how to integrate it into their courses. The method, developed by Håkan Mitts and Tuomo Eloranta, generates sustainability ideas and concepts that can be included in existing courses.
All Aalto graduates should have the capability to analyse and tackle complex sustainability challenges especially related to their own field, and to grasp opportunities for making a change.
