Sustainability Literacy Thats Our QEP Systems Thinking and

Sustainability Literacy: That’s Our QEP Systems Thinking and Interdisciplinary Problem Solving Student Teaching Module 2017/2018

Talk of “sustainability, ” “climate change, ” “ 21 st century problems” is everywhere… But what does “sustainability literacy” really mean? How can we, as students, address these complex 21 st century problems?

What is Sustainability? Sustainability – as defined by the College’s Quality Enhancement Plan – is the ability to integrate economic, social and environmental systems in ways that allow for individual, institutional, community, regional and planetary resilience. Collectively, these are the “Triple Bottom Line” of sustainability.

What is Sustainability Literacy? Sustainability Literacy is having the knowledge and skills to advocate for resilient social, economic, and environmental systems. At the College, all of our community members must develop an understanding that environmental, social and economic sustainability are not independent of one another, but are rather inextricably linked.

The Triple Bottom Line: Environment, Social Equity/Equality, Economics Triple Bottom Line These 3 legs are interconnected and must be balanced.

Student Knowledge and Skills for Sustainability Literacy Triple Bottom Line

21 st Century Problems are complex. To make a change we must change how we think about them. The more we understand about our behaviors and systems the more leverage we have to address important issues. http: //donellameadows. org/systems-thinking-resources/ Addressing 21 st Century Problems will require systems thinking. This is a key learning gap identified by the QEP.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: The Triple Bottom Line directly correlates to international initiatives for a sustainable future. Many of the ideas in the SDGs are present in current courses, the QEP aims to assist in making these ideas and their relationship to sustainability more clear.

What is systems thinking? Systems thinking is a set of analytic skills used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding systems, predicting their behaviors and devising modifications to them in order to produce desired effects. In the context of the QEP, systems thinking will focus on the system interactions of the economy, society and the environment, at individual to global scales. For more information on systems thinking, here’s a video from Peter Senge, an expert on the topic: https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=e. Xdz. KBWDra. M

Key Concept: Systems thinking requires thinking in holistic, interconnected, interdisciplinary ways “A systems-thinking lens helps us to reclaim our intuition about whole systems and hone our abilities to understand parts, see interconnections, ask “what-if” questions about possible future behaviors and be creative and courageous about system redesign” -Donella Meadows “We can understand a great deal more about a system if we focus on the patterns of relationship between the parts rather than on the parts themselves as isolated entities” -Stephan Harding

A complex, resilient system: The Human Body Systems are always linked and embedded. Human bodies are smaller systems (organs, vascular system, etc. ) that make up larger systems (ecosystems, political systems, social systems, etc. ) The human body is a resilient system. It can: • fend off thousands of different kinds of invaders • Tolerate wide ranges of temperature and wide variations in food supply • Reallocate blood supply, • Compensate to some extent for missing or defective parts • Learn, socialize, design technologies,

Racism: A complex, interconnected, 21 st century problem The Triple Bottom Line: • Social equity/equality: Criminal justice, health care systems • Economic: Income inequality, work opportunities • Environmental: Environmental racism https: //world-trust. org/about-world-trust/system/

21 st Century Problems: Climate Change Issues broken down by the Triple Bottom Line: Triple Bottom Line Legs: Problems: Social Equality/Equity • Economic • • • Environmental • • • Solutions: Consumption as status Lack of policies to deal with climate change • • Policy reform Changes to morality Rethinking behavior patterns Incentivizing fossil fuels Externalizing true costs of consumer goods • Investing in clean energy Incentivizing sustainable practices Ocean acidification Changing rainfall patterns Rising sea levels • • • Reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere Practice greener farming techniques

Addressing These 21 st Century Problems Transformation involves fundamental change, which in the context of sustainability, requires radical, systemic shifts in values and beliefs, patterns of social behavior, and multilevel governance and management regimes. Addressing these problems requires a shift in education. This is what the QEP aims to assist with on the College’s campus.

System Resiliency Resilience is the capability to anticipate risk, limit impact and bounce back rapidly through survival, adaptability, evolution and growth in the face of turbulent change. Resilience is about tipping points and novelty but also system memory in that designing resilient systems does not always mean a return or recovery of an initial system state… How do we adapt and grow? How can we change to a just and equitable society embedded in healthy ecosystems?

Resilience Science • Resilience Science: The science of living with surprise, change and shock as these relate to sustainability • Resilience thinking: Designing complex, adaptive systems that can grow and adapt with ever changing environments, complexity and uncertainty in both rapid and gradual changes

Adaptive Capacity In ecological systems: Is related to genetic diversity, biological diversity and heterogeneity of landscape mosaics In social systems: The existence of institutions and networks that learn and store knowledge and experience, create flexibility in problem solving and balance power among interest groups Importance to system thinking and resiliency: Greater diversity and functional redundancy are good things as they increase adaptive capacity and also make a system more resilient. https: //www. resalliance. org/adaptive-capacity

Why are these skills important for your employment future? • “The skills which were most often deemed important for post university work: Teamwork, flexibility, decision-making, interpersonal sensitivity, creativity. ” University of Kent, Europe • “Sustainability is important to customers… revenue of companies that care about sustainability increases year after year” Forbes Magazine (2016) • “Companies with their eye on their “triple-bottomline (economy, social equity/equality, environment) outperform their less fastidious

How can you get involved? There are many ways to be engaged with the Sustainability Literacy Institute: • • • Sustainability Related (SR) Courses Sustainability Focused (SF) Courses SLI Research Opportunities and Grants SLI Events and Campus Workshops SLI Student Ambassadors Sustainability Literacy Scholars Program For more information: Visit http: //sustain. cofc. edu/ Questions about getting involved? Email Dr. Le. Vasseur at