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Packed LUNSHE!

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A year of building community and partnerships to embed sustainability into programmes of study and student opportunities

Our Leeds University Network for Sustainability in Higher Education (LUNSHE) is now two years old, has 190 followers from across a diverse spectrum of disciplines, roles, and levels of expertise. Together we explore ways to embed Sustainability into programmes of study and student opportunities. Our LUNSHE, community of practice group, gathers monthly via hybrid one hour lunchtime sessions supported by an online collaborative channel. We celebrate diverse approaches to increasing student interaction with sustainability. We create time to discuss the practical considerations, to build connectivity and catalyse new collaborations. Over the last academic year, we have delivered seven sessions and five workshops including student led sessions and international collaborations. To join future LUNSHE sessions sign up here

LUNSHE has been developed by the Sustainable Curriculum project team, with representation from seven Schools, two research institutes and four professional service areas. The Sustainable Curriculum principle is one of the core strands of our University’s Climate Plan and supports our Student Education Strategy commitment to embed environmental and social sustainability across our curriculum and give all students the opportunity to engage in sustainability through their course, community, now and into the future.

The sustainable curriculum programme responds to students’ appetite to learn about sustainability and participate in activities that respond to real-world problems. The latest Student Organising for Sustainability UK survey results show that 85% of Leeds student respondents thought places of study should be obliged to develop students' social and environmental sustainability skills as part of their course. We recognise the value our students place on exploring sustainability in relation to their discipline as well as through student opportunities. 

Here are just some of our collective Sustainable Curriculum achievements over the last academic year, with many more innovative approaches delivered at a local level:
 

Linked to strategy 

  • Sustainable Curriculum is a priority theme within the Leeds Curriculum Framework. We advocate for the need to embed sustainability through formal student education committees and through our integration into Curriculum Redefined and its projects. 
  • We continue to work with colleagues across the university’s Climate Plan and collectively promoted the Climate Plan to our students as part of the university’s Climate Week and via other on campus opportunities. 

Student research  

  • We have initiated a collaborative project with the Library and other internal partners to develop a sustainability data repository, giving students access to sustainability data (including campus data) and support in using it, for coursework, final year projects, and more... 

Working with student researchers 

  • We have supported student Laidlaw scholar sustainability research projects and benefitted from an Experiential Learning Student Intern researching the interface between experiential learning and embedding sustainability, highlighting mutual benefits. This will now inform resources for staff and students. 
  • We have worked in partnership with Sustainability Society members to co-design a research project to explore more inclusive definitions of sustainability competences. 

Student opportunities 

  • We are collaborating with Global Student Opportunities to expand sustainability work-based learning opportunities to maximise ways for our students to engage in real-world problems and gain work-ready skills. 
  • We have a live Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project in partnership with NTU Singapore. In mixed groups students will participate in online hackathon and ideation sessions on sustainability themes 
  • We created 26 Student Sustainability Architect part-time paid roles to take forward sustainability projects including Sustainable Curriculum projects. 

Supporting staff and student learning and understanding of climate change and sustainability 

  • We are working in partnership with Organisational Development & Professional Learning to create content to contribute to academic professional development programmes and enhance our Sustainable Curriculum SharePoint resource. 

Understanding and enhancing sustainability education practice and provision 

  • We have embarked on a partnership project with Students Organising for SOS-UK to conduct student-led sustainable curriculum mapping of undergraduate and postgraduate provision across six Schools. For some schools this is in response to changes in accrediting body requirements and new sustainability criteria. 
  • We continue to develop content and resources on sustainability skills, as part of the Leeds Skills Matrix, to encourage the inclusion of these within skills learning outcomes and reflection practices built into co-curricular student opportunities. 

Building partnerships across the university 

  • We welcomed our Just Transition staff champion to our project team to ensure that equity and fairness is a threaded throughout our approach. 
  • We have developed partnership models with the Digital Education Service, Global Student Opportunities, Organisational Development & Professional Learning and many more academic and professional service areas to establish a networked model to meet our Sustainable Curriculum commitments.  

Sharing our journey and insights... 

  • We have delivered workshops and presentations internally and externally and regularly host our LUNSHE sessions. Topics covered include: sustainability and inclusivity, GenAI, sustainability skills and academic professional development. Recently we shared our LUNSHE model & LITE Fellowship insights on embedding sustainability at the EuroSoTL conference in Groningen in the Netherlands and one of Laidlaw scholar's presented their project at the 5th World Symposium on Sustainability Science and Research 

In the year ahead, we will continue to champion the Sustainable Curriculum and the student gains from participating in sustainability. We look forward to nurturing further collaborations to meet our university commitment! If you would like further information about our work and approach see our project team membership here or email sustainablecurriculum@leeds.ac.uk 

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Our work on LUNSHE is linked to all of the SDGs but especially the following SDGs: