Education a Key to Addressing Sustainability Challenges

by Alison Lueders, Great Green Editing

Sustainability covers a broad set of issues: energy, environment, food, water, waste, green building, transportation – the list goes on. Our survival depends on understanding and addressing those issues properly. And that means learning about the causes, effects and possible solutions to these challenges. We all need to go “back to school” on this one. Happily, there are many educational options available, in Tampa Bay and beyond.

Just a small sample of schools and programs in Tampa Bay includes:

In the spirit of “Think Globally, Act Locally“, here are additional green happenings in the education realm:

  • Another Florida-based school that is stepping up to the plate is the University of Florida in Gainesville. They offer a Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning with a specialization in Sustainability. It’s offered online, enabling students to save time and money by not traveling to a classroom.
  • Options for green education abound outside of Florida as well. Here’s the “Green Honor Roll” from the 2011 Princeton Review, highlighting the top 16 colleges that offer green studies complemented by robust green actions on campus.
  • The just-completed UN Conference on Sustainable Development included an education component. The Higher Education Initiative from Rio+20 calls on the leaders of the international  academic community to commit to sustainable practices. Universities in 50 countries (and counting) have already signed on.
Next week, we’ll talk about green government – both from the perspective of what government is doing to operate more sustainably itself, and to support sustainability efforts in other sectors of the economy.  See you then!