Chemistry education for sustainability: Assessing the chemistry curricula at Cardiff University

Abstract

As more universities become interested in, and engaged with, sustainability, there has been a growing need to assess how their curricula addresses sustainable development and its myriad issues. Different tools and assessment exercises have looked at course descriptors. This paper presents the Sustainability Tool for Assessing Sustainability in UNiversities’ Curricula Holistically (STAUNCH®) assessment of the School of Chemistry, Cardiff University. The results indicate that STAUNCH® can be instrumental in identifying courses that more adequately capture the breadth and depth of sustainability and exhibit high contribution scores. The curricula assessment can help university leaders and directors of teaching and learning better understand where they should engage in changes to make chemistry education more sustainability-oriented, and, ultimately, to have the greatest impact in helping make societies more sustainable. Overall, STAUNCH® can provide a systematic method for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the chemistry curriculum for the purpose of devising curriculum reform strategies to promote student sustainability learning