Biology professor Hilary Callahan co-edited Transforming Education for Sustainability, alongside Maria Rivera Maulucci and Stephanie Pfirman.
The book was created as a collaborative effort from faculty, staff, and students across Barnard College.
The following chapters were co-authored by the members of the biology department listed below:
- Education for Sustainability: Connecting with Signs of Hope - Hilary Callahan, professor
- Building Authentic Connections to Science Through Mentorship, Activism, and Community, in Teaching and Practice - Angie Patterson, former research technician
- When a Titan Arum Blooms During Quarantine - Nick Gershberg, director of greenhouse operations
- What Does Cell Biology Have to Do with Saving Pollinators? - Jonathan Snow, professor
- Going Up: Incorporating the Local Ecology of New York City Green Roof Infrastructure into Biology Laboratory Courses - Former microbiology professors Moshe Rhodes and Krista McGuire, with biology majors Kaye Shek and Tejashree Gopal
- Syndemic: Using Game-Based Learning to Engage Students in the Human Microbiome - Emma Ruskin, alumna, class of 2017
- The UNPAK Project: Much More Than a CURE - Hilary Callahan, professor
- Panel One: Theorizing the Environment, March 10, 2021 - Hilary Callahan, professor
- Panel Two: Climate Change and Anthropocene, March 19, 2021 - Jonathan Snow, professor
About the book:
"This book investigates how educators and researchers in the sciences, social sciences, and the arts, connect concepts of sustainability to work in their fields of study and in the classrooms where they teach the next generation. Sustainability, with a focus on justice, authenticity and inclusivity, can be integrated into many different courses or disciplines even if it is beyond their historical focus. The narratives describe sustainability education in the classroom, the laboratory, and the field (broadly defined) and how the authors navigate the complexities of particular sustainability issues, such as climate change, water quality, soil health, biodiversity, resource use, and education in authentic ways that convey their complexity, the sociopolitical context, and their hopes for the future. The chapters explore how faculty engage students in learning about sustainability and the ways in which working at the edge of what we know about sustainability can be a significant source of engagement, motivation, and challenge. The authors discuss how they create learning experiences that foster democratic practices in which students are not just following protocols, but have a stake in creative decision-making, collecting and analysing data, and posing authentic questions. They also describe what happens when students are not just passively receiving information, but actively analysing, debating, dialoguing, arguing from evidence, and constructing nuanced understandings of complex socioscientific sustainability issues. The narratives include undergraduate student perspectives on what it means to engage in sustainability research and learning, how students navigate the complexities and contradictions inherent in sustainability issues, what makes for authentic, empowering learning experiences, and how students are encouraged to persevere in the field. This is an open access book."
You can access Transforming Education for Sustainability at the following link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13536-1