ESI Curriculum Mini-Grants for Infusing Sustainability in STEM

Deadline: Wednesday, March 24, 2021

 

SUMMARY OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

Up to $15,000 per proposal is available for faculty and teaching staff who want to develop problems or p-sets, lectures, and/or other curricular materials that introduce undergraduate students to concepts in environment, climate change and sustainability within STEM subjects.

OBJECTIVES

ESI envisions grant awards ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. Preference will be given to expenditures that most directly lead to infusion of environmental, climate and/or sustainability topics into regularly taught MIT subjects. In addition, based on the pool of applications received, our goal will be to optimize the distribution of funding based on diversity in disciplines/departments and learning objectives, maximizing student enrollment, and feasibility of implementation in subsequent terms.

BACKGROUND

The ESI has partnered with departments across MIT to “infuse” environmental, climate change and sustainability topics and problems into GIRs and other high-enrollment STEM foundational classes in statistics and computer science. To date, sustainability topics have been infused into GIR and introductory classes in Chemistry (3.091), Physics (8.01 and 8.02), Calculus and Differential Equations (18.02 and 18.03), Statistics (18.05), and Computer Science (6.006), as well as Biology, Math, Chemistry and Physics classes in ESG. Over 6,000 students have been exposed to environmental topics through these classes, spending over 50,000 hours on environment and sustainability problem sets.

Instructors have introduced or framed core concepts in terms of their applications to the environment or sustainable development, creating curricula exploring challenges in context.

The aim of the funding opportunity  is ESI’s mandate to reach the broadest possible population of MIT undergraduates with enhanced environmental learning as part of foundational subjects. Infusing environment and sustainability into the regular foundational stream of learning enhances students’ appreciation of both sets of content and can light a spark of motivation to apply their education to solving global challenges.

These mini-grants are designed to offer faculty and teaching staff access to resources that can inform problem sets, generate ideas, and enhance the sharing of best practices around sustainability infusion.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES AND SCHEDULE

Please fill out the ESI Sustainability Infusion Mini-Grant Application Form here: https://forms.gle/B8Qfk2ewE8sn3rzH7

Students are welcome to participate in proposals and grant activities as members of a faculty-led team. Successful grantees will be asked to submit their final materials to ESI by the end of the fall 2021 semester.

  • Call for applications issue date: Friday, February 12, 2021
  • Applications due: Wednesday, March 24, 2021
  • Notification of grants awarded: Friday, April 2, 2021
  • Latest curriculum development end date: December 2021