Teaching and learning
Learn for a sustainable future.
Education is essential for solving global sustainability challenges. We are committed to empowering all our students to become leaders of change, ready to address urgent issues like sustainability and climate change.
The University Strategy 2030 aims to provide an education that empowers, with environmental sustainability as a core principle. Our sustainability courses equip students with practical skills, hands-on project experience, and the knowledge to implement real-world solutions. We are delivering this vision through:
- Taught programmes
- Modules available to all students
- Workshops and training available to all staff and students
We are dedicated to integrating sustainability across our curriculum through the Responsible Futures programme, in partnership with University of York Students’ Union.
Sustainability modules
We offer a wide range of sustainability elective modules to choose from, along with award-winning sustainability interdisciplinary modules available to all undergraduate and postgraduate students across every Department and School at the University.
Sustainability education spotlights
Societies and the Climate Crisis
Offered by Sociology
The climate emergency is transforming societies worldwide. Its effects on the earth, including rising sea levels, extreme heat, droughts and storms, are already impacting the lives of human and non-human animals alike. Meanwhile, the climate crisis has had many effects on society, including mass protest, the imprisonment of activists, forms of climate denialism, and lifestyle changes such as plant-based diets and eco-fashion.
This elective module considers how the capitalist economic system and a colonial world order has led to ecological collapse, and addresses how sociological theory can help us to understand the unequal impacts that the climate crisis is having on societies worldwide.
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Sustainability in the screen industries
The School of Arts and Creative Technologies is part of BAFTA's albert Education Partnership. albert is the leading screen industry organisation for environmental sustainability. Through this partnership students are introduced to the sustainability knowledge they will need when joining the production workforce by focusing on the many ways in which the film and television industries can become more sustainable while also reflecting on the importance of climate change content to storytelling.
To find out more visit the albert website. Do you feel this might be of interest to you? Why not contact the convenor at mariana.lopez@york.ac.uk?
Environmental Justice, Harm, and Policy
Offered by Social Policy and Social Work
The Environmental Justice, Harm, and Policy module for third year students offers a unique, interdisciplinary, exploration of the relationship between society and the environment. Drawing on theoretical thinking from green criminology and environmental justice the module explores a wide range of societal impacts associated with environmental damage; explores how and why these impacts are socially patterned, with the greatest harmful effects often felt the most by the poorest, most marginalised members of society; and critically assesses existing policy frameworks, exploring why so few harmful environmental activities go unregulated, and why so few environmental crimes are ineffectively punished.
Have a question about this module? Contact Caz Snell in Social Policy and Social Work.
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