Greenhouse gases from human activities are causing climate change, creating risks for people around the globe. Behaviors involving transportation, diet, energy use, and purchasing drive greenhouse gas emissions, but are also related to health and well-being, providing opportunity for co-benefits. Replacing shorter automobile trips with walking or cycling, or eating plants rather than animals, for example, may increase personal health, while also reducing environmental impact. Mindfulness-based practices have been shown to enhance a variety of health outcomes, but have not been adapted towards environmental purposes. We designed the Mindful Climate Action (MCA) curriculum to help people improve their health while simultaneously lowering their carbon footprints. Combining mindfulness-based practices with the Stages of Change theory, the MCA program aims to: (1) improve personal health and well-being; (2) decrease energy use; (3) reduce automobile use; (4) increase active transport; (5) shift diet towards plant-based foods; and (6) reduce unnecessary purchasing. Mindfulness practices will foster attentional awareness, openness, and response flexibility, supporting positive behavior change. We plan to test MCA in a randomized controlled trial, with rigorous assessment of targeted outcomes. Our long-term goal is to refine and adapt the MCA program to a variety of audiences, in order to enhance public health and environmental sustainability.

the interdisciplinary work of a group of people committed both to better defining and to accomplishing these tasks.As a change agent, SENCER is concerned with institutional and curricular reform, particularly in regards to designing new science courses and rethinking older ones in ways that make the connections between science, people, and society more transparent. Through such connections, these courses invite students (as well as their instructors) to engage in the complex social issues that face us today locally, regionally, and globally. Ultimately, as Leshner pointed out, science is about people and life. So is the SENCER project.We first describe how the SENCER approach contributes to the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Next we offer examples of chemistry courses that have been constructed on the SENCER model. And finally, we acknowledge the challenges that underlie the project, including designing the SENCER course, setting and assessing its goals, and teaching for civic engagement. The SENCER ProjectIn 2005, SENCER entered its fifth year as a national dissemination project. Originally affiliated with the Association of American Colleges and Universities, SENCER now has its home in the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. One of the authors of this paper (KKO) is the co-founder of the Center, and a cadre of SENCER senior associates (including the other authors of this paper) serves as the faculty for the SENCER Summer Institutes for curricular development. Over 300 participants attended the 2005 Institute, representing 106 institutions, 30 states, and three continents. In addition, the senior associates contribute background papers and descriptions of model courses, as do the SENCER participants themselves. The details, as well as a quarterly newsletter, can be found on the SENCER Web site (2). Symposia featuring SENCER courses have been organized at recent national meetings (3)(4)(5).At the heart of the SENCER project lie its undergraduate courses for nonscience majors, including courses currently being taught and courses under development by teams at over 150 colleges and universities. These courses explicitly teach through complex, current, and contested real-world issues to basic scientific principles, thus engaging the learners in the complexities of both. In fact, the previous sentence is foremost among the ideals (List 1) to which the SENCER courses

Pro-environmental behaviors and the cultural shifts that can accompany these may offer solutions to the consequences of a changing climate. Mindfulness has been proposed as a strategy to initiate these types of behaviors. In 2017, we pilot-tested Mindful Climate Action (MCA), an eight-week adult education program that delivers energy use, climate change, and sustainability content in combination with training in mindfulness meditation, among 16 individuals living in Madison, WI. We collected participant data at baseline and at different times across the study period regarding household energy use, transportation, diet, and health and happiness. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of the various MCA study practices including measurement tools, outcome assessment, curriculum and related educational materials, and especially the mindfulness-based climate action trainings. MCA was well-received by participants as evidenced by high adherence rate, high measures of participant satisfaction, and high participant response rate for surveys. In addition, we successfully demonstrated feasibility of the MCA program, and have estimated participant's individual carbon footprints related to diet, transportation, and household energy.

No abstract

In the undergraduate curriculum, chemistry and sustainability connect easily and well. Topics in chemistry provide instructors with opportunities to engage students in learning about sustainability; similarly, topics in sustainability provide instructors with opportunities to engage students in learning chemistry. One’s own college or university campus is a useful source of content related both to sustainability and to chemistry. To obtain this content, instructors must seek out and learn from those working in campus facilities and operations. For the past five years, the approach of utilizing campus-based content was employed by the authors in teaching an introductory environmental science course. This paper describes three topics from this course that general chemistry instructors can use to help students make connections to sustainability: the carbon cycle, the carbon footprint, and the energy required to heat water. These topics are presented with the hope that instructors will use them with data from their institutions, utilizing their own campus as a “living laboratory” for sustainability.