Teaching Sustainable Design

Welcome all EcoCity Summit participants,

My name is Michael Sammet, and I am the program director for the Sustainable Design Program at the University of California, Berkeley Extension in San Francisco. We are co hosting the 2008 World Summit and I am moderating this "Education" dicussion forum.

I hope to use this forum to discuss and share best practices for teaching sustainability and sustainable design. I invite participants to note useful books, or articles, and classroom activities that spur the learning of sustainability.

Perhaps we can also share problems or issues we have experienced in teaching and studying sustainability. For example: 1) wide range of student abilities 2) lack of teaching materials 3) uneasy relationship of sustainablity education with academic institutions 4) too multi disciplinary to find proper niche 5) balancing theoretical and practical knowledge.

I teach at an Extension program that is mostly adults aged 25-50, so many of my interests concern teaching that group, but the forum should address all levels of sustainability education. I hope to be in touch with all of you who are interested in this impotant topic and see you in San Francisco next April..Michael