Rachel Carson College's minor in Sustainability Studies and its Sustainable Living Undergraduate Research Program (SLURP) were awarded the 2015-16 UC Best Practices Award for Sustainability in Academics: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math at the 12th annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC), held at Cal State Fullerton in late June. The Best Practices competition is intended to:
- Highlight the achievements that California campuses have made through innovative and effective energy efficiency projects and sustainable operations.
- Showcase specific projects as models to be used by other campuses to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability goals.
- Provide campus staff with a compendium of Best Practice projects that could be transferable to their campus (see https://chesc.org/best-practice-awards/overview/)
The Sustainability Studies minor (http://tinyurl.com/mzs86tr) is designed to be a complement to students’ majors, allowing them to broaden their applied skills and knowledge, and their ability to analyze and understand complex systems and their interactions through society and the environment. Instruction and hands-on activities incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) concepts and techniques in solving problems and designing projects--in which even environmental policy analysts should have some training. SLURP (http://tinyurl.com/hcdccqn) provides students with the opportunity to engage in hands-on sustainability projects and to refine their understanding of the coneections between policies and practices.
