Environmental Studies lecturer Kristi Straus not only earned a Husky Green Award this year, but also a Distinguished Teaching Award, for her classes focusing on mindful sustainability.
The WholeU has a Faculty Friday feature today showing how Straus' teaching creates a deep connection with students. In her class Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts, students are tasked with sustanability activities that provide opportunities to change their behavior or think more deeply about their actions.
For example, at one point in the course students carry all the recycing and garbage they generate for a week with them everywhere they go.
“The goal—the backbone—is to have students do personal sustainability activities where they either change their behavior or examine their behavior and reflect on it,” Straus says. “It inspires student to think about what sustainability is, how do we define it, how do we move toward sustainability, and how much our individual choices actually matter.”