A paper from the STEM Annual Conference 2014.
Sustainable development and green computing issues are increasingly important for computing professionals. Preparing the next generation of implementers and developers requires that Higher Education providers develop curriculum to reflect this. There are a number of drivers behind this – encompassing industry and professional body demands policy makers’ directives as well as institutional commitments to sustainability. Other reasons include the effectiveness of this topic as a way to address particular issues in engagement and recruitment to computing courses. When considering “sustainability" or ("green-ness") in teaching we should consider the appropriateness and suitability of material and target it at an appropriate level. There are also choices about how to present the material so as to match students’ motivation which can reflect gender and other demographic issues. Institutions can adopt different approaches such as specialised courses as components of wider programmes or as specialised courses in their own right. Some approaches integrate the topic into undergraduate teaching treating environmental impact as a design constraint within a solution. This paper reports on some of these variations and directs readers to an online resource to enable colleagues interested in this topic to share ideas and approaches. Whilst the focus is on computing many of the issues are transferrable to other STEM disciplines.
