A sustainability theme for introductory programming courses

Sustainability is an important topic for modern college and universities, many of whom are actively promoting sustainable practices and integration of sustainability topics into course curricula. The inclusion of socially-relevant projects and course “themes” has been shown to assist in attracting students to Computer and Information Science, and practical, problem-based applications have also been shown to attract females and underrepresented groups to the discipline. In Computer and Information Science education, most documented approaches attempt to integrate sustainable computing topics either as learning modules, open-ended project topics, or as concentrated courses. This paper describes a lightweight, non-intrusive pedagogical approach to integrating sustainability education in introductory programming courses. By creating introductory programming projects focused on sustainability topics, students are exposed to the general concepts and terminology involved with the important scientific and societal topic. This approach also allows students to see the practical applications of computing in a socially relevant context. Results of a two-year study of this approach have been encouraging, though more work is needed to assess the full impact of this approach and to overcome the limitations of the implementation context.