Developing curricula and model systems for sustainability science

• Jeannine M. Cavender-Bares
• Stephen Polasky

Abstract
Sustaining the systems that support life while meeting human needs represents one of the greatest challenges that we face in the 21st century. Sustainability science is a use-inspired science aimed at addressing this challenge. We propose a two-year distributed graduate seminar across six institutions to address core concepts in sustainability science and to develop model systems for advancement of theory and tools for sustainable management. The collaboration will benefit from interaction and synthesis across institutions and disciplines, the hallmark of NCEAS, and from the technical, data management and cyber-support that NCEAS can provide. Four key outcomes include 1) a curriculum and publically accessible wiki for sustainability science to provide a pedagogic foundation for the emerging field, 2) the development of model systems for sustainability science to promote rapid advances, 3) a synthesis of key insights from applying a sustainability science framework to these model systems, and 4) a series of team case studies including inclusive valuation of shifts in land-use and restoration to aid decision making.