Fostering Creativity and Growing Learner Communities through an Inquiry-based Approach to Teaching Sustainability

This webinar describes an intermediate-level French curriculum designed to enhance students’ creativity, cultural awareness, and community engagement through inquiry-based activities related to environmental sustainability in French-speaking contexts, as well as within their UC Berkeley campus community. The curriculum incorporates analysis of primary sources (legal documents, literary works, visual images, maps, and films) to study a range of environmental issues, both contemporary and historical. The curriculum has also involved videoconferencing exchanges with students at the Université Aix-Marseille, leading to collaborative recommendations for holding “eco-responsible” events on campus. We have found that, if students are introduced to this disposition of inquiry early on in their studies, they encounter more positive, engaging discipline-specific research experiences in upper-division courses