Climate Change & Sustainability Curriculum Innovation Resources
Are you an instructor interested in integrating climate change or sustainability concepts into your courses or developing new coursework that addresses the challenges and opportunities posed by climate change? Thanks to a generous alumni donation, the Office of Sustainability and Resilience and a faculty advisory committee are offering resources supporting curricular efforts in these areas over the next two years.
After a successful first year of funding resulting in a foundational course on climate change (SS/FW 2801 - Intro to Global Climate Change), a retooled course in GMES (GE 4220 - Mineral Systems and Climate Change), and a new upper level atmospheric sciences class (PH 4999 - Foundations of Climate Physics), we aim to expand the impact in future years by supporting faculty and staff across campus to integrate climate change and sustainability concepts to existing or new courses.
New this year:
- A tiered funding model means that we are able to support course integrations ranging from the module or project level to entirely new courses, with a flexible resource base to support different levels of investment. Larger, integrated ideas that support multiple courses or other educational models are also possible.
- We will host a Climate Across the Curriculum Faculty Development Workshop for all interested faculty and staff, provisionally scheduled for early summer. The purpose of this workshop is to advance curriculum development, share best practices for teaching and learning, and build a community of faculty and staff around climate change and sustainability. The workshop will take place on two consecutive half days after the spring semester and will include remuneration for faculty and staff participation.
Interested?
To begin, we are gathering a list of faculty and staff interested in climate change or sustainability course integrations. Please fill out this brief form indicating your interest by February 13, 2026. If your interests involve collaboration with other faculty or staff within or across university units, the form has a section to indicate this. We will follow up later in February for additional conversation and details on resources and timeline.
Please reach out to Lauren Furey, Manager of Sustainability Programs and Outreach, with questions (lafurey@mtu.edu).