Mapping out Students’ Opportunity to Learn about Sustainability across the Higher Education Curriculum

Decades of policy initiatives, a developing body of literature, and a growing cadre of practitioners are united in suggesting that the preeminent approach to educating students about sustainability is by infusion throughout the higher education curriculum. While there is mounting evidence that sustainability should be taught to students beyond the disciplinary confines of natural science and geography, little is known about the prevalence of this topic throughout an entire higher education curriculum. Therefore the study reported here aimed to capture a bird’s eye view of the presence of sustainability subject matter at one higher education institution through survey research. The findings showed that nearly two-thirds of the student participants reported that they had exposure to sustainability subject matter during the course of one academic semester. Of the students who reported that they did have the opportunity to learn, most of them only learned about sustainability at one point in time. Inadequate time is being devoted to educating students about sustainability, especially given the amount of time and effort needed to promote a transformative learning experience. As a result of these findings, the recommendation is that administrators and policymakers advocate for repetition of sustainability subject matter across the curriculum, instead of the common discourse merely calling for it to be infused throughout the curriculum.