How Can STEM Support Sustainability

About

With the world progressing into a deeper climate crisis, the concept of sustainable living is becoming a priority for governments, organisations and even individual households. Many advances towards promoting a sustainable lifestyle and economy have been made but there are still opportunities in areas including materials and designs.

At our 2024 Sustainability Summer Programme, we offer students the chance to join our world class academic colleagues from the Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy to look at the concept of Sustainability and how STEM can help society work towards this goal. Within this accredited course, we will explore different areas of STEM with a view to encouraging and inspiring innovations by bringing people together from all over the world to explore practical solutions.

The course is split into mini themes that spread across the different areas of STEM covered by the faculty. During the course, you will have the opportunity to explore Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Renewable Energy, and Mining and Geology, amongst other areas. By looking at all these different areas, you can see how each is crucial to the goal of sustainability and get a rounded view of STEM in these areas. The second portion of the course is a group research project available from one of the specified programme areas above to allow you to focus in and do a deep dive into a particular area that you are passionate about alongside students with the same motivation from around the world. Through different activity types including plenaries, workshops and seminars students will use the insights into the different areas to then work on projects that could have a real life impact on the concept of sustainability.

The first week of the programme looks at the different areas each day and gives a great oversight into the subjects and study of STEM within those fields. The second week focusses on the Exeter School on Urban Analytics and shows how computer science can help us to manage and evaluate urbanisation and the impact that has on sustainabiltiy.

Course leader

Dr Mohammad Akrami

Target group

Any students interested in environmental studies, engineering, mathematics, physics or other STEM areas who have a GPA average of 3.0 or above.

Course aim

To show how different areas of STEM studies can work towards the goal of sustainability and provide greater understanding of the study of STEM specific to those areas.

Fee info