Sustainability and Education
Program Description
Are you ready to become a leader at the intersection of environment, education, and equity? The Master of Arts in Sustainability & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is a first-of-its-kind Ivy League graduate program — and a leading online master’s in sustainability — designed to equip educators, policy professionals, and organizational leaders to address pressing environmental and social challenges through education. This program centers learning as a lever for change, empowering you to use education to build a more just, sustainable world by advancing ecological integrity, social justice, and economic vitality.
Program Degrees
Expand the accordion(s) to view the degree requirements:
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The master’s in sustainability and education includes courses that help you develop an interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between learning, environment, climate justice, and systems change. Each course is designed to equip you with practical knowledge and analytical skills across topics like environmental policy, climate literacy, health, food systems, curriculum development, and research methods. Your courses are built for immediate impact and prepare you for real-world sustainability education careers.
Specific courses include:
- Introduction to Environmental Sustainability Education
- Climate Change, Society, and Education
- Science in the Environment
- Environmental Health
- Nutritional Ecology
- Evidence for Change I: Introduction to Quantitative Methods
- Evidence for Change II: Introduction to Qualitative Methods
- Professional Seminar
Program Faculty
Faculty
- Pamela Ann Koch
Mary Swartz Rose Associate Professor of Nutrition and Education - Oren Pizmony-Levy
Associate Professor of International and Comparative Education - Sonali Rajan
Professor of Health Promotion and Education - Ann Rivet
Associate Professor of Science Education
Program Courses
HBSS4161 Environmental Health
This course provides an introduction to the field of environmental health, while focusing upon those environmental factors that affect the health of communities - including biological, physical, and chemical factors. The relationship between the natural and built environments on human health are focused upon. In addition, the course incorporates the use of case studies and current peer-reviewed literature in the field of environmental health to promote knowledge acquisition. Health education curriculum and program development processes are incorporated into the course as well.
HBSV4013 Nutritional Ecology
This course tries to answer the question, “Is our current food system ecologically sustainable?” Nutrition and food are viewed from a global, ecological perspective. Topics include limits to growth, food and population problems, food product development and promotion, energy and food relationships, food safety, organic agriculture, biotechnology, and other topics
ITSF5034 Climate Change, Society, & Education
This course introduces students to the links between climate change, society, and education. Through assigned readings and materials, lectures, games, and field trips, we will examine different perspectives on climate change (climate science, social science, indigenous knowledge systems), the international architecture behind climate change education (CCE), best practices and their impact on teaching and learning in k-12 schools, the spread of climate information, misinformation and disinformation, and the recent emergence of the global youth movement advocating for climate justice. Our discussion will be based on a variety of literatures including theoretical texts, empirical research, and policy documents.
ITSF5433 Professional Seminar: Sustainability and Education
Graduate school is “professional school”, and part of your graduate training is to learn the practices of your chosen profession. This course focuses on professional and personal development for careers in the broad field of Environmental Sustainability Education (ESE). Through course activities and assignments, students will develop a rich “tool kit” (e.g., create CV and resume, develop five-year plan), reflect upon their identity as a practitioner, and build plans for future success. The course will encourage students strongly to draw from their experience, using these experiences as a reservoir of issues to explore and to use when applying different tools and frameworks. This yearlong online professional seminar – also known as proseminar or prosem – is required of all students in the Sustainability and Education Program.
MSTC4043 Science in the environment
Exploration of environmental science from an earth physiology perspective. Focus on connections between contemporary environmental issues and environmental science concepts. A community study utilizing scientific inquiry procedures and applying pertinent environmental science concepts will be conducted.