Undergraduates in a Sustainability Semester: From Individual Action to Community Engagement

• In Event: 31.066 - The Promise of Learning in Place and With(in) Community: Stories and Embedded Justice

Abstract

Sustainability education programs are emerging in increasingly larger numbers globally, but little is known about student learning in these contexts. This critical case study employed Activity Theory and Situated Learning Theory to examine student learning in a “Sustainability Semester” in a Mennonite liberal arts college in the United States. Results show that 1) students’ strategies for maintaining ideal sustainable lifestyles expanded from individual-oriented actions to include strategies for community engagement, and 2) one year after graduation, students attributed challenges in maintaining sustainable practices to structural constraints rather than personal choice. The discussion highlights tensions between Mennonite isolationism and the environmentalist value of civic participation. Implications for how similar programs might help students problematize the individual/structure dichotomy are discussed.

Author

• Hannah K. Miller, Johnson State College