A generic model for integrating ESD in a university course – complementing a textbook with contemporary material

A large number of stakeholders are demanding more education for sustainable development (ESD) at Swedish universities, among them students who are expecting to find ESD in their courses. The aim of the article is to present a model for how to develop a course to include ESD when no updated textbooks are yet available and Bloom’s taxonomy is used for demonstrating the high level of learning that can be achieved without any syllabus changes. The setting for the case study and model development was a course in service marketing with a diverse group of students in terms of their background and education, at Umeå School of Business, Economics, and Statistics at Umeå University in Sweden. The course took place in the middle of the education program. Techniques such as lectures, guest lectures, assignments based on the theoretical textbook content, and a term paper were used to incorporate ESD into the course in order to accomplish possibilities for generic use. A challenge in designing ESD was the lack of knowledge about the students’ initial understanding of sustainability. The model was designed to take this into account. The design of assignments showed clear possibilities of achieving high levels of learning in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy, including analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model is also an endeavor to encourage university teachers to introduce elements of ESD in their usual courses.