A bottom-up multi-disciplinary approach for sustainability education: UN-SDG 13.3

• Main Authors: GAN, Benjamin, MENKHOFF, Thomas, OUH, Eng Lieh, CHEONG, Kevin
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
• Subjects: Multi-disciplinary pedagogy; sustainability education; sustainable development goal; problem-based learning; mixed method studies; Databases and Information Systems
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/9216; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/10222/viewcontent/A_Bottom_Up_Multi_Disciplinary_Approach_for_Sustainability_Education__UN_SDG_13.3.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Teaching both information systems and business undergraduates to break the current inertia in sustainability action requires innovative teaching & learning approaches as well as inter-disciplinary knowledge inputs. This study presents a bottom-up T&L approach delivered by a group of educators from different disciplines aimed at addressing UN-SDG Goal 13 ‘Climate Action’ with a novel approach. Integrating a problem-centric community project assignment into existing courses, our students worked on different disciplinary elements such as persuasive technologies and awareness campaigns to help to address local sustainability initiatives by community partners. We collected data to measure how students’ motivation, engagement, teamwork, and community partnerships influence or predict climate proficiency, related learning outcomes and overall course satisfaction. We found influencing predictors and developed recommendations aimed at motivating students and engaging them emotionally and skills-wise with reference to SDG 13. We provide guidelines to improve student orientation, sustainability-related community partnerships, course alignment and project execution.