Let's Get Sustie

Sustie: Curriculum and resources to help sustainability learners develop a moxie to how they make change.

We work to help educators develop their learner's needed skills, disposition, and character to realize sustainability knowledge into sustainability action and solutions.

If you look at most of the curriculum and resources out there for sustainability education, they are all about the "what." This is things like climate change, land conservation, protecting water, renewable energy; the things that make sustainability efforts easy to recognize. Those are all incredibly important resources, and there are many experts in any given sustainability science topic.

But when you search for resources about how to develop an individual or group to be sustainability change agents, the number of resources gets small quick. They do exist, but they often feel... safe, and don't quite foster the sense of urgency or ability to make the bigger disruptions we know we need to make substantial change when designing and implementing sustainability solutions. When learning how to build the strength, wisdom, and courage needed to make change, it may be even more as important than the "what."

Meet Phyl. Andrew and a friend were hiking and came across this leaf, just like this. Smiles all around.

What's in a name? Sustainable Moxie? Sustainamoxie? Moxiecogical?...Sustie!

For us at Sustie, we regard sustainability as ultimately a human endeavor. It is about our behavior, our actions, how fast we learn and how quickly we can change when we learn what we are doing is not good for each other and the environments we call home. That is why we've adopted the manta of sustainable moxie, where we focus on the grit and "courageous spirit" needed to put sustainability science into action. We chose the name Sustie as a portmanteau of sustainability and moxie, and also as a nod to the term "susty," often used as shorthand by sustainability professionals. Moxie is also the name of Andrew's dog who has been by his side through years of teaching and PhD research.

Moxie at her finest, waiting patiently for play time.

The "what" about sustainability changes rapidly and quicker than ever before. When a student learns about climate change or emerging technologies, it is already dated. At Sustie, we frame all curriculum through competencies, placing emphasis on the how. There is plenty of competency research and lists out there, but we frame all curriculum with these Principles of Sustainability:

Systems Thinking and Resilience
Macro & Micro Visioning
Evaluating Trade-Offs
Anticipating Consequences
Identifying Stakeholders

As you navigate our curriculum, we will guide you through the "what" you need to know with bigger ideas, and will link to freely available sources for deeper knowledge so you're not dependent on a textbook. We will also revisit items regularly and make updates. But what makes us stand apart is we tie in the how by identifying important characteristic traits, strategies for change, and situational understanding through problem, project, and placed-based learning. We do our best to stay humble and resourceful to keep curriculum simple to enact.

Where we are today

Sustie launched in the Fall of 2020. Andrew had long been meaning to make use of the oodles of original curriculum he wrote for grades 7 through doctoral and professional, though mostly secondary level. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and relocating, along with being inspired by his newborn daughter Juniper, he finally made the jump of updating his sustainability, biology, and general science curriculum to better reflect what he found to be the most relevant part of his over decade of teaching, inspiring and showing his students how to make change in their communities with the content he was teaching. With the help of former student Shantel and former teaching assistant Julia, both graduates of Arizona State University's School of Sustainability master's program and been part of Andrew's teaching firsthand, we are excited to make available these innovative and timely resources. Please let us know any feedback you have so we can continuously improve.

Caption for a recent accomplishment

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