Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the behaviors, attitudes, and levels of understanding among faculty, staff, and students in efforts to design programs aimed at reducing energy use in University of Michigan (UM) buildings. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-method approach is used in five diverse pilot buildings including focus…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cohort of university presidents and vice-presidents in Canadian universities conceptualize sustainable development, sustainable universities, the role universities play in achieving a sustainable future, key issues facing the university, and the barriers to implementing sustainability…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of a whole-person approach to educating for sustainability (EfS), with a focus on persons' identity, motivation and higher order dispositions. To propose that approach as an alternative to the prevalent focus on specific capabilities and competencies in higher education for…

Purpose--The purpose of this paper is to draw attention of the education for sustainable development (ESD) community to recent discussions on competence approaches and to examine the adequacy of a competence-based model as the means of achieving educational and societal transformation towards sustainability. The paper analyses and highlights some…

Purpose: The overall purpose of this paper is to clarify the current state of the debate with regard to competencies for interdisciplinarity (ID) for sustainable development (SD) in higher education, to provide further analysis, and to make suggestions for next steps on this basis. Design/methodology/approach: The paper employs a critical…

Purpose--The purpose of this paper is to review and highlight some recent examples of embedding education for sustainable development (ESD), within science and related curricula in ways that are meaningful and relevant to staff and students and reflect on different embedding strategies and discourses. Design/methodology/approach--A review of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of values and beliefs rooted in "non-Western" cultures in implementing global education initiatives such as education for sustainable development (ESD) at the regional and local levels. This is because many of these initiatives are often derived from "Western" cultures and values.…

Purpose--Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify components and educational design principles for strengthening sustainability competence in and through higher education. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper that uses an exemplary autobiographical empirical case study in order to illustrate and support a line of reasoning.…

The Admitted Student Questionnaire Plus (ASQ[superscript +]) is a standardised measure that provides an analysis of the student's college selection process. Among other things, the instrument inquires about the importance of 16 college characteristics, followed by quality ratings of specific colleges that the student considered on these same…

Geospatial technologies (GSTs), such as geographic information systems, global positioning systems and remote sensing, present an avenue for expanding the already strong interdisciplinary nature of geography. This paper discusses how GSTs served as a common thread for a crosscutting faculty institute that was established to enhance graduate…

This study characterizes the impact of an inquiry-based learning (IBL) module versus a traditionally structured laboratory exercise. Laboratory sections were randomized into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using IBL pedagogical techniques and included manipulation of large-scale data-sets, use of multiple…

This paper examines the degree of multidisplinary cooperation for Geographic Information Science (GIS) education programs that award GIS-related degrees or certificates at US colleges and universities. We classified departments and courses into ten major disciplines using Dewey Decimal Classification. In the 2007-2008 academic year, approximately…

Drawing on experiences from a project conducted in the "Drentsche Aa" area in the Netherlands, this article discusses the concept of the "rural atelier" as a form of problem-based learning. The rural atelier principle was used originally in rural development planning and described as such by Foorthuis (2005) and Elerie and koopman (2008). Here, we…

This article discusses the results when integrating digital versatile disc (DVD) technology in full-time second-year geography for BEd degree students at a university in South Africa, a developing country. It proposes a framework for the integration of the DVD in geography teaching and learning, steered by students' needs, feedback and…