All of the undergraduate courses in the Department of Biosciences and Chemistry at Sheffield Hallam have just successfully gone through a full revalidation. From 2024 our department will be offering refreshed versions of our courses in:
- Biology
- Biochemistry,
- Biomedical Science
- Chemistry.
- And introducing a new exciting course ‘Biomedicine and Health Science’.
Whilst developing our new courses we had a number of initiatives and enhancements in mind. One was to make sure the courses climate change and sustainability were at the forefront of our thinking. During the process this also became a University level initiative: SHU Climate Action Strategy
Our courses all share a strand of professional skills modules. These modules include lab practicals as well as developing skills students need to be successful at University and then beyond into their graduate careers. We have embedded sustainability and climate awareness into these Professional Skills modules. In their first year Semester One the students will be introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and produce a group and individual piece of work on one of the goals in particular. Students will reflect on this goal in relation to their course of study and implications on that subject.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. – UN
This will then lead to consideration of the sustainable nature of their lab programme in semester two, where they undertake a course specific mini project. The students will undertake a small-scale audit of the processes, encouraging thinking on items such as single use plastics in the labs, heating, cooling and water use. This will be a core part of considerations for the mini projects that they have in semester two of their first and second years.
We are working through all of our current lab practices with regard sustainability. For the new courses we will look to replace old practicals that are not of best practice with good examples of greener alternative. We started this process last year, when we introduced a new three day Green Chemistry lab for our final year Chemists this year. For those interested it is largely based on this lab but with some other activities added, including computational aspects: J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 11, 1509–1513
The final year project will also include a sustainability audit. They will consider single use plastics, scale of experiments and specifics related to their projects. This will be an additional item for students to consider alongside ethics and risk assessment of their projects. The students will need to complete a proforma with this information on prior to starting in the lab (or other data collection process).
There are specific examples of sustainability and environmental aspects being taught within a course specific content. Chemistry and biology lend themselves particularly to more in depth study. For biologists ecology and the environment are key areas of learning. Student will learn about biodiversity and how the environment is challenging ecosystems. In chemistry we already have, and will continue to, have a visiting lecturer who is an expert in sustainable practice in the chemical industry. This gives students a real insight into current practices and advances. There are two new Chemistry modules where environment and sustainability will be very visible, the first year Applied Topics in Chemistry final year core module Chemistry for Future Global Challenges.
During the process we discussed the sustainability agenda with our employer advisory board. They encouraged us to add the sustainability considerations into mini projects, as that is what will happen when they are in jobs. They wanted students aware of industry concerns. These initiatives will make our graduates very aware of the world around them and the positive (and potentially negative) impacts science can have on society and what we can do to mitigate these.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson:
Science, the cause of, and solution to, many of the worlds problems….