Welcome!
The purpose of this website is to promote practicing sustainability. As students in the Practicing Sustainability class in the Department of Geography at Virginia Tech, we created this website to share our efforts about our progress towards achieving a sustainable future. This is the capstone class for the Pathways to Sustainability minor. Future Practicing Sustainability classes will use this website to share and document their work and efforts.
There are four key features of this class. The first feature is the content of the class syllabus as it co-creates and changes every year. Each year the Professor co-designs the course content with students and teaching assistants. This collaborative re-design process will update course content to meet students' knowledge and develop their skills in specific areas.
Second, we organized the guest speaker series to cover broader sustainability topics. These speakers are experts in various aspects of sustainability and include university professors, practitioners, activists, and policymakers worldwide. Some of the topics we covered for the Spring 2024 class are: diversity, equity, and inclusion; circular economy; climate, energy solutions, and policy; sustainable transportation; cooperation under water scarcity; biodiversity conservation, tourism, and resource-based livelihoods; environmental justice and sustainability; and sustainable agriculture.
Third, this class does not have any exams. Instead, we use group projects to foster learning and collaboration. For instance, our Spring 2024 class webpage features our "Photovoice" assignment, images from our participation in a sustainable fashion show, creating this website, and a group research study. Student group leaders and teaching assistants are a crucial part of these activities.
Lastly, we document our practicing sustainability efforts to share with the global community. By doing this, we aim to promote our teaching approach and sustainable thinking/living with communities all around the world. Thanks for visiting our website and checking out our work!
"Although we were only altogether for one semester in this capstone course, I am so proud of the work we have accomplished in such a short time. This class allowed all of us to use the traits and skills that make each of us unique and combine all those strengths together to create sustainable change. From all different majors, backgrounds, and years -- our class was a beautiful blend of what makes each of us individuals and what each of us can contribute to a team. Joining together and creating change as a community is what will ultimately lead to a more sustainable future, but that spark starts within each and every one of us".
-- Jules Cerato, Group C Leader and Class Website Editor