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.
Multidisciplinary Case Studies
The annotated case studies below are well-suited to courses across Georgia Tech that hope to engage their students in sustainability. Review the options available for your class, and don’t hesitate to recommend a new case study to SLS!
The 1995 Chicago Heat Wave
Are heat waves simply natural disasters over which we have no control? With heat waves set to increase over the coming decades, how can we fight this invisible killer?
Cross-Cultural Communication
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.
Thinking More About Food, Climate Change, and Sustainability
This awareness building short reading and discussion activity allows students to:
SLS Case Study: The Atlanta BeltLine
The Atlanta BeltLine is one of the most important urban renewal projects of the 21st century. In this case study, read about the ambitions, successes, and struggles of this project, now in its 12th year.
Urban Heat Islands and the Georgia Tech Climate Network
Extreme heat leads to more deaths in the US than all other natural disasters combined, and as global temperatures rise, so will the dangers.
Readings, Videos, and Resources about Community Health
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 Community Health, which focuses on achieving a holistic and communal understanding of health, in all intellectual, physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, and social aspects of life.
Responsible and Sustainable Creativity: Working with the Georgia Tech Invention Studio
This tool is developed from ideas used by Yelena Rivera-Vale and Kristina Chatfield in their GT 1000 courses.
ReGenesis Case Study: Creating a Sustainable Community through Collaborative Problem-Solving
This tool uses the ReGenesis case study from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to explore what it means to “create sustainable communities” through broad stakeholder engagement.
SLS Case Study: Proctor Creek
Proctor Creek runs through northwest Atlanta, extending from I-20 in southwest Atlanta to the Chattahoochee River. An important piece of Atlanta’s natural environment, it also has a long history of neglect and pollution, which has negatively affected its surrounding communities.
Readings, Videos, and Resources about Equitable and Sustainable Development
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 Equitable & Sustainable Development, focuses on how environment, economy, equity and society shape large infrastructure projects.
Concept Maps
This tool provides an overview of concept maps, and how to use them. Concept maps (CMaps) are diagrams that represent organized knowledge. They are a useful tool for assessing student knowledge over the course of a project, module, or course.
Society, Equity, and Sustainability
SLS approaches sustainability as an integrated system, linking environment, economy, and society.
SLS Case Study: The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design at Georgia Tech promises to be a flexible, multi-use academic space as well as the most environmentally advanced educational and research building in the Southeast.
Readings, Videos, and Resources about Green Infrastructure
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 Green Infrastructure, which focuses on achieving a society in which our buildings, neighborhoods, and cities promote environmental justice and allow the local environment to flourish.
Exploring Asset-Based Community Development: The Parkway Community
The Parkway Community ABCD Exercise invites students to engage in an exercise to explore what it means to take an asset-based approach to community development (“an ABCD” approach), versus a “needs” or “deficit” approach.
Introduction to SLS & Sustainable Communities
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 exploring additional opportunitie
Community Engagement Preparation and Reflection Tool
This tool provides instructors with two assignments that 1) prepare students to engage with community partners, and 2) allow students to reflect upon their community engagement experience.
Readings, Videos, and Resources about Social Innovation
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 Social Innovation, which focuses on instigating change and progress in social areas.
Getting to Know our Georgia Tech Through Journaling
This journaling tool, based on a lesson created by Yelena Rivera-Vale and Kristina Chatfield, introduces first year students to Georgia Tech’s efforts to create a sustainable campus community.
Learning More About Community Organizations
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.
Living Infrastructure: The Atlanta Beltline
This tool uses stakeholder mapping to explore the various entities that influence and benefit from infrastructure projects. Through a short presentation and reading, students will learn about one specific infrastructure project: the Atlanta BeltLine.
Readings, Videos, and Resources about Climate Change & Energy
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 Climate Change & Energy, which focuses on Earth's changing climate and the energy advancements being made to keep these changes in check.
Environmental Justice Resources
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!
Sample Syllabi for SLS-Affiliated Courses
Serve-Learn-Sustain is well on its way to having affiliated courses and projects in every department across Georgia Tech. Below, you will find sample syllabi from disciplines that cross the six colleges and schools.
