Sustainability Compass - Inspire Citizens

 Source: https://inspirecitizens.org/

Audit institutions, community spaces, projects,
and personal habits for sustainability

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Compass Education

Purpose:
Having a sustainability framework, such as the Sustainability Compass, allows individuals or teams to audit successes and challenges in an organization, personal or collective actions, or a project in relation to nature, economy, society, and wellbeing.

Student Impact Profile:
Critically examine community needs to design ethical solutions

Enduring Understanding:
Having a tool that critically assesses the sustainability of an organization, project, or personal action helps in identifying needs and potential impact projects that develop more sustainable attitudes, behaviors, actions, and policies.

Essential Questions:

1. Assess & Explain: How might using a Sustainability Compass support a greater understanding in the need for positive change in personal or community action?

2. Identify & Distinguish: In my sustainability assessment, how did I distinguish between identified community strengths and areas for improvement?

3. Reflect, Predict & Comment: How might a common understanding of sustainability unify a community?

4. (Extension) Transfer & Evaluate: How can I apply my experience with the Sustainability Compass in a school organizational assessment towards evaluating the sustainability a community project or the True Price of personal action?

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Core Activities:

1. Pre-assess student background understanding of sustainability

2. Use the Sustainability Compass to help students enhance their understanding

3. Create a Sustainability Compass chart and audit the school campus and community.

4. Consolidate information for a bank of project ideas.

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Flexible Steps: 

Apply these ideas for context while scaffolding and differentiating for age, language proficiency, readiness, independence, learning needs, content connections, and so on.

Compass Education

1. Pre-assess student background understanding of sustainability then share the Sustainability Compass to help students to describe what they can synthesize. What is our new understanding of sustainability in relation to nature, economy, society, and wellbeing?

2. Create a Sustainability Compass chart. Have students survey the sustainability of the campus by walking around (20-30m), thoughtfully observing what they see in the campus and audit these strengths and areas for improvement.

3. Upon returning to class, have students reflect and share thinking and observations on their audits.

4. Consolidate information from the various teams in a community Sustainability Compass table or wall that highlights the most essential observations on successes and areas for improvement.

5. Keep these essential observations as an idea bank for innovative projects enhancing successes or problem solving for challenges.

Extension Possibilities:

True Price

1. Connect with Compass Education to access the School Sustainability Self-Assessment to help identify indicators for a campus sustainability audit which can spark inquiry or project ideation.

2. Use the Sustainability Compass to analyze the “True Price” of a campus service project (i.e. a bubble tea fundraiser) or in analyzing responsible consumption or production of goods and services (i.e. beef, t-shirts, iPhones, coffee)

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Allow for embedded quality time to reflect on learning, understanding, or the essential questions through speaking, writing, or other creative reflection and formative assessment opportunities.

Reduce Global Ocean Plastic Wastes

 Link: https://www.nap.edu/resource/other/dels/plastics-in-the-ocean/

The United States should substantially reduce solid waste generation (absolute and per person) to reduce plastic in the environment and the environmental, economic, aesthetic, and health costs of managing waste and litter. There is no single solution to reducing the flow of plastic waste to the ocean. However, a suite of actions (or “interventions”) taken across all stages of the path from source to ocean could reduce ocean plastic waste and achieve parallel environmental and social benefits.

Decrease Waste Generation.
Actions at this stage reduce unnecessary use of plastics such as some single use applications.  Types of interventions can include product limits and targets for recycling and reuse.

Improve Waste Management (Prevent or Reduce Disposal/Discharge).
Action within this stage improves solid and other waste infrastructure, collection, treatment and management, including leakage control and accounting.

Capture Waste (to Remove Plastic Waste from the Environment.)
Improving waste capture from the environment before or after it enters the ocean is another intervention strategy.  This can include re-capturing wastes from stormwater or directly from waters where it accumulates, such as during river or beach cleanups or using retention booms.

Minimize Ocean Disposal.
This category reduces inputs of plastic waste into the ocean directly from vessels, point sources, or platforms and includes actions under specific laws and treaties relevant to ocean pollution. 

Other Activities (to Support Above Interventions)

Flow diagram of available plastic waste interventions from plastic production to recapture of plastics in the ocean.

SOURCE: Modified from Jambeck et al. (2018).