Environmental Sciences: teaching innovation committed to sustainable development

Final presentation of the projects on sustainable development in the Aula Magna at the Faculty of Biology.
Final presentation of the projects on sustainable development in the Aula Magna at the Faculty of Biology.
Institutional
(25/05/2020)

The course on Sustainable Development in the bachelorʼs degree on Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology of the UB is taught as a service-learning project: students conduct a month of masterclasses and develop the largest part of the activity in some non-profit entity. Now, this initiative has been selected by the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development to be part of the publication Implementando la Agenda 2030 en la universidad. Casos inspiradores de educación para los ODS en las universidades españolas. With this, the task carried out in this course is recognized not only as a teaching innovation project but also as a contribution from the university to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Final presentation of the projects on sustainable development in the Aula Magna at the Faculty of Biology.
Final presentation of the projects on sustainable development in the Aula Magna at the Faculty of Biology.
Institutional
25/05/2020

The course on Sustainable Development in the bachelorʼs degree on Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology of the UB is taught as a service-learning project: students conduct a month of masterclasses and develop the largest part of the activity in some non-profit entity. Now, this initiative has been selected by the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development to be part of the publication Implementando la Agenda 2030 en la universidad. Casos inspiradores de educación para los ODS en las universidades españolas. With this, the task carried out in this course is recognized not only as a teaching innovation project but also as a contribution from the university to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The entities that accept the students from Sustainable Development are very diverse, but they are all non-profit institutions involved in the SDGs advances at a local scale. There are neighbourhood associations, cooperatives, ecologist organizations and museums. Another of these is the office of Health, Safety and Environmental Issues (OSSMA) of the UB, to apply the SDGs in the University campuses. Each entity has a group of four students, who have to design a project to help reach the organizationʼs objectives, always related to the SDGs.

Among the developed projects so far with participation from the UB students is one on water purification in Madina Souane (Senegal) in the entity Alegria sense Fronteres, which won the Torres & Earth Award to environmental innovation 2019. Also, the Associació de Veïns de Can Sant Joan in Montcada i Reixac organized dissemination activities on the positive environmental impact of recovering Rec Comtal and the negative effects of the incineration plant in Montcada. There is also the sustainability plan of the Maritime Museum of Barcelona among other projects.

Like in all service-learning cases, this is about combining learning processes with services to the community in the same project, so the students can lead their own learning about the SDGs working on the real needs of the environment while trying to improve it. They explain what they have learnt to the rest of the class through collective tutoring. In the final sessions, all results and self-assessment is shown in the student report of other groups, which is added to the global assessment by the teaching staff of the course, in which the tutors from the entities also take part.

According to the new publication by the Spanish Network for the Sustainable Development, during service-learning, “students learn to promote a sustainable development with the community needs, identifying social, economic and political barriers. Also, the SDG conceptual frame allows to identify how our actions can contribute more efficiently to change the world”. It also adds that “the opening of the Faculty to citizen entities eases the interaction with scientists and allowed to open new research pathways”.

This project from the bachelorʼs degree in Environmental Sciences is part of the activities of the Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group on Sustainable Development of the UB and is one of the service-learning projects promoted at the UB framed within the Research, Improvement and Innovation in Teaching and Learning Program (RIMDA).