DURHAM, N.H. – The Sustainability Institute at the University of New Hampshire can now work with high school teachers and community college faculty in the state and region to design sustainability curricula for their classrooms with a $50,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation. Participating schools include Farmington, Salem, and Goffstown high schools; Manchester, Nashua, and Great Bay community colleges; and New Hampshire Technical Institute.

The Sustainability Learning Collaboratives will link UNH education faculty with community colleges and high schools with large under-served populations (ethnically and socioeconomically), engaging them over the course of 2013 in curriculum development and professional studies. In addition, teachers and faculty will develop new teaching methods and assessment strategies reflecting the principles of sustainability.

“UNH is a great public university, with a visionary Sustainability Institute,” says Paula Salvio, professor of education, a faculty fellow at the Sustainability Institute and faculty director of the project. “Together with our colleagues, we’re looking forward to creating innovative high school and community college curricula that bring humanities and social science perspectives to environmental challenges and policymaking.”  

Participants will design curricula during three workshops in 2013, the first of which was recently held at UNH March 1 – 3, 2013. The Sustainability Institute “CORE” model (curriculum, operations, research and engagement) will be adapted by teachers and faculty to reflect their respective challenges and opportunities. Two other workshops will be held in late April and in the summer. The goal is for each participating school to implement the curriculum in next fall.

“To ensure we foster the sustainability thought leaders of tomorrow, we must ensure they can attain the best education available today,” says James Gowen, chief sustainability officer at Verizon.  “The Sustainability Institute at the University of New Hampshire is helping to inspire, educate and prepare these students to face today’s sustainability challenges, and transform them into opportunities for a greener tomorrow.”

Engagement with the state and region on sustainability education is a key component of the Sustainability Institute at UNH. Sustainability is a core value of UNH, shaping its culture, informing behavior, and guiding its work. As a nationally recognized leader, UNH draws on the Sustainability Institute to act as convener, cultivator and champion of sustainability on campus, in the state and region, and around the world. Learn more at www.sustainableunh.unh.edu.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea and space-grant university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling 11,800 undergraduate and 2,400 graduate students.

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