Teaching and Scholarship

The Teaching & Scholarship group co-led by Dr Noleen Chikowore and Dr Jonathan Busch brings together researchers and teaching staff from across the School of Earth and Environment who are interested in Scholarship and Research on Teaching and Learning (often referred to as SoTL). As a group of scholars in a School with a broad portfolio of taught courses, ranging from Sustainability-focused social science to Geosciences and Atmospheric sciences, we believe that an evidence-based and transformative approach to pedagogy is crucial for educating sustainability, environmental and earth science practitioners who can tackle the Grand Challenges our society and planet face.

We specifically focus on:

• Decolonising Sustainability Education—how can the curriculum, the overall student experience, and the University as an institution develop awareness of the legacies of colonisation, question colonisation mindsets, and change accordingly?
• Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in education, as well as student engagement—how do students’ and staff’s diversity contribute to the learning experience, how can we make the university a place of inclusive and accessible learning in which diversity is valorised?
• The emotional experience of sustainability students – how we can adapt our curricula and teaching practices to help foster ‘eco-hope’ in students who are faced with the realities of the climate and ecological crises throughout their studies.
• Education for sustainable development – how can sustainability competences be developed through the curriculum, co and extra-curriculum, how can they be assessed and what kinds of pedagogies are more appropriate?
• The path to Net Zero – how can we teach students about the role of geoscience and environmental sciences in the energy transition, with initiatives like the Geothermal Campus from Geosolutions Leeds.
• Living Labs and education for sustainability, building leadership opportunities for students to start their own research and education projects on and off campus tackling pressing sustainability issues related with energy, biodiversity, inclusion and community engagement.
• Assessments and Feedback – explores how students' understanding of assessment briefs, criteria, and feedback processes enhances their effort to interpret and apply feedback effectively.

We engage with higher education networks such as Advance HE and Researching, Advancing, and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE), and EdExE (Education excellence in Environment).