Acting sustainably: encouraging and crediting student engagement with sustainable development

This paper reports aspects of the findings of a Small Scale Project funded under the ‘Bringing the ‘Real world’ into the GEES Student Learning Experience’ initiative. The project aimed to develop new learning and teaching opportunities for students of GEES related courses within the School of the Environment at the University of Brighton centred on the real world practices of sustainable development. Project activities included the development and undertaking of an audit of modules within the current curricula, focus group meetings with students and the development of a credited ‘volunteering’ module for students. The paper reports on the findings across all these activities and their value in shaping future developments, within and beyond the curricula and indeed, the GEES disciplines at Brighton. One of the principal outcomes of the project is considered to be the enhanced capacity of staff and students in this area, such that it is hoped that the detail of the project process will be of interest to colleagues beyond the University of Brighton.