Without it we are dead! Water is essential, but what processes must it go through to become fit for human consumption? This unit will guide you through the continuous cycling of water between land, open water surfaces and the sea before moving on to an overview of the water treatment and supply process.

The Profit Seed game is an exploration of the issues surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMO) and the patenting of agricultural seeds. It is also an experiment with a novel game mechanic. A player uses her mouse to control the wind, trying to plant heirloom seeds while preventing GMO seeds from blowing onto a farmer’s plots. If enough GMO seeds land in the field and germinate, the lawyer from an agribusiness corporation comes to sue the farmer and take his land.

For students and teams who have started a sustainable-development project in D-Lab (SP.721, SP.722), the IDEAS Competition, Design for Demining (SP.786), Product Engineering Processes (2.009), or elsewhere, this class provides a setting to continue developing projects for field implementation. Topics covered include prototyping techniques, materials selection, design-for-manufacturing, field-testing, and project management. All classwork will directly relate to the students' projects, and the instructor will consult on the projects during weekly lab time. There are no exams. Teams are encouraged to enroll together.

Ellen Dunham-Jones fires the starting shot for the next 50 years' big sustainable design project: retrofitting suburbia. To come: Dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 19-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

The Pelican Web & E-JournalThere is overwhelming evidence that violence is the main obstacle to sustainable development. It is also well known that there is an intrinsic link between patriarchy and violence. Therefore, mitigatingviolence requires overcoming the patriarchal mindset in both secular and religious institutions.The mission of "The Pelican Web" is to collect and analyze knowledge on patriarchy-induced obstacles to sustainable development, and to publish the free subscription, open access "E-Journal of Solidarity,Sustainability, and Nonviolence" (JSSNV). The e-journal provides a monthly digest on current research pursuant to human solidarity, ecological sustainability, and both secular and religious non-violence.Each issue includes links to relevant "best of the web" content. The basic philosophy of the journal is Christian, but no source of wisdom is excluded. The U.N. "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs) are used as a point of reference.Sincerely,Luis_________________________Luis T. Gutierrez, Ph.D.The Pelican Webhttp://pelicanweb.orgEditor, "Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence"http://pelicanweb.org/solisust.htmlA free subscription,open access e-journalsolidarity-sustainability-subscribe@googlegroups.com

D-Lab World Prosthetics is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Jaipur Foot Organization to improve the design, manufacture, and distribution of rehabilitation devices in the developing world. The course welcomes individuals interested in physical rehabilitation to work on multidisciplinary teams of students with bioengineering, mechanical engineering, material science, and medical or pre-medical backgrounds. Students will learn about the basics of human walking, different types of gait disabilities, as well as the technologies that seek to address those disabilities. Patient perspectives and current research areas are presented. Lecture topics focus on lower-limb disabilities, including polio and above-knee and below-knee amputation, and will cover both developed and developing world techniques for overcoming these disabilities. Students form teams to design and prototype low-cost orthotic and prosthetic devices, and present their work at the end of the course.

Welcome to the course module on strategic environmental assessment (SEA) - a learning resource that explains SEA theory, practice and methodology. The course covers SEA principles; SEA status worldwide; links between SEA, environmental impact assessment, and strategic decision-making; and a wide range of SEA tools and techniques, and their advantages and disadvantages in various settings. The course is divided into: Background, Strategic actions, SEA Process, Baseline Assessment, Implementation, References and definitions.

This instructional guide explains the structure of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) course and expected learning outcomes, suggests some course assignments, and suggests some guidance for course participants when carrying out the assignments.

Global footprints explores the concepts of sustainable futures, global or ecological footprints and personal and social responsibility, using the picture book, 'The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley', written by Colin Thompson and illustrated by Amy Lissiat, a factual text and video in 'Ida's story', and the short novel, 'Blueback: A fable for all ages', by Tim Winton. Unit elements include an overview, description of focus, teaching and learning activities, and links to the Australian Curriculum. The unit explores the topic of sustainability through the Australian Curriculum: English, and strands of language, literature and literacy, applied to a range of texts and text types.

The sustainability learning suites is a set of learning objects created for people with a post-secondary science background, organized in six themes: Systems thinking; Sustainable development; Population; Energy; Water and Materials. The materials are designed on Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning and include: learning objectives, editable slides with notes and embedded classroom activities, activities of 1-3 hours, assessments, and a set of 24 videos.

Taking Care of Earth Together allows students to explore pressing issues that relate to our shared responsibility to care for the environment for future generations, using picture books, spoken and multimodal texts, plays, poetry and songs. Unit elements include an overview, description of focus, teaching and learning activities, and links to the Australian Curriculum. A unit of work from a collection of online units with supporting resources for teachers. The unit explores the global citizenship topic of sustainability through the Australian Curriculum: English, and strands of language and literature, applied to a range of texts and text types.

This course examines alternative conceptions and theoretical underpinnings of the notion of "sustainable development." It focuses on the sustainability problems of industrial countries (i.e., aging of populations, sustainable consumption, institutional adjustments, etc.); and of developing states and economies in transition (i.e., managing growth, sustainability of production patterns, pressures of population change, etc.). It also explores the sociology of knowledge around sustainability, the economic and technological dimensions and institutional imperatives along with implications for political constitution of economic performance.

"This course examines alternative conceptions and theoretical underpinnings of the notion of "sustainable development." It focuses on the sustainability problems of industrial countries (i.e., aging of populations, sustainable consumption, institutional adjustments, etc.); and of developing states and economies in transition (i.e., managing growth, sustainability of production patterns, pressures of population change, etc.). It also explores the sociology of knowledge around sustainability, the economic and technological dimensions and institutional imperatives along with implications for political constitution of economic performance."

By independent study of the book Sustainable Development for Engineers (K.F. Mulder, 2006) students acquire basic knowledge about sustainable development

This course explores the application of environmental and economic development planning, policy and management approaches to urban neighborhood community development. Through an applied service learning approach, the course requires students to prepare a sustainable development plan for a community-based non-profit organization. Through this client-based planning project, students will have the opportunity to test how sustainable development concepts and different economic and environmental planning approaches can be applied to advance specific community goals within the constraints of specific neighborhoods and community organizations.

The main objective of this video lesson is to bring the students' attention to the importance of basic and natural sciences in our lives. The lesson will introduce a topic (sustainable energy) that is related mainly to chemistry and is not usually covered directly in a high school curriculum. We hope that this lesson will show students how important and useful the natural and basic sciences are not only for our daily lives, but also for sustainable development. The lesson will present creative and challenging ideas on the topic of alternative energies. It is hoped that students will be inspired by the introduction of these ideas, and that they will develop the confidence to come up with creative ideas themselves. Background for this lesson is based on fundamental concepts in chemistry (mainly), biology, physics and environmental science.

Companies and governments have to decide upon technological strategies, i.e. which products are to be developed and which processes and infrastructures are required for the future. Several tools to consider technological strategies are dealt with in this course.

Conducting innovative research is working on the edge of the known and the unknown. In creating new technology the result is never guaranteed. Society faces a tremendous challenge in order to develop in a more sustainable way. What role is there for technology in this process of change? How could we stimulate innovations in technological systems?

This version of the subject Technology Dynamics and Transition Management was taught in co-operation with the Harbin Institute of Technology in China. At the heart of this module lies a model of technology development from a social perspective, which will be applied to water problems in present-day China.