Browse our tools by Category, Type, Big Ideas, and/or Time Commitment, for example, or simply feel free to explore the options below. We also invite you to contribute by adding your own tools that you’ve successfully tried in your classrooms.
Multi-Criteria Decision Matrix Exercise
In preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) faced an unprecedented design challenge: create an 80,000 capacity stadium with the…
In this case study, gas and electric utility holding company Southern Company has embarked on an ambitious experiment to learn more about energy usage at a household level, as well as community-scale microgrids. Every minute, sixty-two homes in…
This tool is developed from ideas used by Yelena Rivera-Vale and Kristina Chatfield in their GT 1000 courses. Students are invited to tour the Georgia Tech Invention Studio and to then consider how the projects they would like to create in the Studio…
It's one thing to be able to articulate what sustainability means, and it's another thing to be able to communicate your ideas through visual design, but this poster design tool does both. Through this tool, students use poster campaigns to raise…
This presentation tool, based on a lesson created by Yelena Rivera-Vale and Kristina Chatfield for their GT 1000 course, introduces first year students to community organizations working on initiatives in the local Atlanta area. Interviewing members,…
The annotated case studies included in this tool are well-suited to business courses across the College of Engineering. Review the options available for your class, and don’t hesitate to recommend a new case study to SLS! …
This tool provides a series of definitions, videos, and other resources for faculty and students who wish to learn more about Environmental Justice. This is an evolving resource, so please feel free to make recommendations!
The annotated case studies below are well-suited to Design courses across the College of Design. Review the options available for your class, and don’t hesitate to recommend a new case study to SLS! Let…
Students often feel overwhelmed by seemingly intractable societal challenges such as climate change, structural racism, and poverty. Inviting students to explore frameworks and stories illustrating positive social change helps them understand…
How and why do people decide to take action when they perceive an injustice? Why do some campaigns to bring about positive social change succeed, while others fail? This case study draws on a successful…
This tool introduces students to the different ways in which equity can be deeply embedded in the design of the built environment, in different phases from beginning to end. It encourages students to consider equity more comprehensively as a…
Ever the Land is an internationally acclaimed documentary film about Te Kura Whare, the fully certified Living Building built by the Tūhoe, a Māori tribe of northern New Zealand. The Tūhoe built Te Kura Whare as a public community center and…
What is power? How can we work together to build power? What are some of the strategies and actions that change agents employ to build power and win change? This tool introduces power and social…
This tool is designed to help students identify connections between the disciplines of planning, transportation engineering, environmental studies, public policy, land use planning, and environmental economics. The goal…
The UN SDGs often seem unattainable. They are broad, and the scope often reads as theory rather than praxis. This tool incorporates a local community partner’s initiative into a global discussion of the…
The Smart Cities Kit is a set of hands-on materials that supports collaborative scenario building activities. These activities can foster a greater understanding of smart-cities as socio-technical systems. Through these activities, students should…
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all” (United Nations). Students completing this lesson will be able to:…
The Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain aims to help students create sustainable communities, where humans and nature flourish in the present and future. One SLS Priority area concerning sustainable communities is information about the United Nations…
This tool, intended to be used towards the beginning of the semester, helps instructors frame their course to students in relation to SLS and our mission of educating students to help “create sustainable communities.” It also prompts students to begin…
This activity, adapted from D.M. Stringer and P.A. Cassidy’s 52 Activities for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication, introduces students to three primary patterns of communication pacing. These patterns can vary in different cultural groups…
The following rubric assesses SLO 1: Students will be able to identify relationships among ecological, social, and economic systems. The goal of this SLO is for students to develop a baseline schema to identify both existing and novel examples of…
The following rubric assesses SLO 2: Students will be able to demonstrate skills needed to work effectively in different types of communities. The goal of this SLO is for students to develop skills (e.g., communication, observation, interview,…
The following rubric assesses SLO 3: Students will be able to evaluate how decisions impact the sustainability of communities. Students who rank highly on this rubric are able to evaluate how a variety of decisions that occur within and outside of…
The goal of this rubric is to assess the ways that students understand, apply, and communicate how their discipline can inform others to enhance community sustainability.