Inventory of content in basic courses in environment and sustainable development at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden

Chalmers University of Technology is actively promoting learning for sustainable development in its educational programmes. A compulsory part of the bachelor curricula is five full-time weeks of studies on environment and sustainable development. This paper presents an inventory of the contents in these courses performed as a series of discussions with the course leaders. The discussions serve as an important part of a course and programme development effort. Important outcomes from the inventory related to, for example, breadth and depth of content in the courses, the position of the courses in the curriculum, and needs expressed by teachers are discussed. The paper also presents a discussion on the method used and on experiences of how studies of this type can be used to promote learning for sustainable development at the university.