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Teaching

TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SUSTAINABILITY LEADERS

We continue to prepare our students for leadership and citizenship in a global society, committed to sustainability and social responsibility.

Our educational programmes are increasingly focused on embracing the ethos of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at a local, national and global level.

Many initiatives and modules have strong links to the SDGs. These include our Postgraduate and Undergraduate courses as well as programs to increase access to higher education and connect our teaching and learning with to our local community.

Through Strategy 2030 we will focus on embedding a focus on the UN Sustainability Goals within all programmes supported by meaningful engagement between students and research leaders and innovators.

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Explore our programmes in sustainability and climate change

Our educational programmes are increasingly focused on embracing the ethos of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at a local, national and global level.

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Queen's University Goes Carbon Literate

In 2021 the University partnered with Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, a local environmental charity, to provide free, certified carbon literacy training to Queen's community.

The training is certified by The Carbon Literacy Trust and provides our community with:

  • An understanding of the science behind climate change and its impacts
  • Awareness of how governments have responded both locally, nationally and globally
  • What we as individuals can do to drive positive, sustainability change. 

To date over 2,000 of our community have completed carbon literacy training. 

More about Carbon Literacy Training in Queen's University

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EMBEDDING SUSTAINABILITY INTO OUR EDUCATION

The University is a signatory to the SDG Accord and as a result, is committed to embedding sustainability into its teaching.

This has been achieved via three key objectives:

  • To understand our current sustainability-related provision.
  • To encourage greater engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals in the curriculum.
  • Ensure new and revised modules consider the Sustainable Development Goals relevance as part of the development process. 

A total of 2,173 modules have been mapped with 1,755 recognised as being sustainability focused, inclusive, supportive or containing sustainability within their learning outcomes. 

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ACADEMIC SUPPORT FOR SUSTAINABILITY TEACHING

'Leading Education for Sustainable Development in the Curriculum' was developed and piloted in 2023 by Dr Alison Calvert and Dr Kieran Higgins, with full SEDA accreditation achieved in June 2024. 

Participants who complete training will gain a working understanding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and its core competencies such as futures-thinking and systems-thinking. They will develop a deeper understanding of how to engage learners through co-creation and partnership, transformative pedagogy, active learning, and authentic assessment.

Training takes place yearly, running over 12 weeks and involving 4 assessments. This course provides academics with a 'deep dive' into ESD and academics who complete it will not only go on to embed ESD within their own teaching practice but will also act as leaders of ESD within their respective schools. 

Integration of the SDGs within Queen’s Management School Learning and Teaching

Queen’s Management School (QMS) is a signatory to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME).

The School has taken several steps to map the integration of the SDGs within modules and has recently developed a teaching resource to support deeper awareness and understanding of the Goals. They have also categorised research outputs against each of the 17 SDGs and engaged with engage with a range with key stakeholders on the goals.