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Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies

Sustainability Edition Create a Course Challenge runner-up in SustainaBul Best Practices

24 May 2022

During the award ceremony of the SustainaBul 2022, the Dutch national sustainability ranking for higher education institutions, the UvA was awarded second place in the Top 5 Best Practices with the 'Create a Course Challenge: Sustainability Edition'. SustainaBul is an initiative of the national student network for sustainability in higher education, Students for Tomorrow. According to the jury, the UvA excelled in the field of stakeholder participation in integrating sustainability, by giving students the opportunity to develop their own course with sustainability as a central theme.

The Best Practice ranking was created by SustainaBul to increase knowledge sharing between educational institutions and to exchange their most effective working method, approach or activity in the field of sustainability. This year, a total of 79 best practices were submitted, from which the four-member expert jury selected a top five. The selection criteria were interdisciplinarity, innovation, student involvement, community engagement and taking a broad perspective.

The winner was Saxion Hogescholen with their Circular Textile Lab. The sustainability edition of the UvA Create a Course Challenge came in a close second.

 

With the Create a Course Challenge, the UvA is truly an inspiration for other educational institutions to also put their students at the helm of educational development. Femke Hermans, chairperson of Students for Tomorrow

In this special edition of the annual UvA Create a Course Challenge, the emphasis was on contributing to the sustainable changes our society needs. Students were challenged by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) of the UvA to think of a creative way to make sustainability education fun, challenging and meaningful and how sustainability can be incorporated into education more effectively. Watch the video below for an impression of the challenge:

In development

Caatje Kluskens, a third-year Media and Culture student at the time, won the special sustainability edition with her idea for the course Food, Animals and the Environment: The Relationship Between Humans, Non-Humans and the Environment. This course studies environmental issues from different disciplines, such as ethics, media studies, environmental studies and political science. Caatje is currently developing the course together with Said Rezaeiejan, lecturer in Political Science at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the UvA, and the educational developers of the IIS. In the spring of 2023, the course will be available to UvA students from all faculties.

The UvA Create a Course Challenge 2022

The UvA Create a Course Challenge is an annual challenge in which students are challenged to submit their idea for a new, interdisciplinary course and to develop this together with the curriculum developers of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS). In this way, students can have a say in the way education is organised at the institute and within the university. The Challenge is scheduled to be held again in October 2022.