Spring 2027

Sustainability

Introduction to sustainability science, surveying global challenges and solutions via an integrated social-environmental systems approach.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Beth Tellman Sullivan

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Kim Wahl

Assignments lacked clear expectations and a consistent rhythm, which made it difficult for students to pace themselves and caused unnecessary stress.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Define sustainability as it relates to science and education.

  • Learn about the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability and some frameworks for defining and measuring progress toward more sustainable systems.

  • Be knowledgeable about the major sustainability challenges and opportunities in local and global systems.

  • Gain an understanding of systems thinking and how we can use systems thinking to help solve sustainability problems.

  • Review sustainable development goals and strategies to support best practices in sustainability initiatives.

  • Identify and apply sustainability principles to assess natural, social, and physical systems.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ENVIRST 215

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

KIM WAHL is recorded teaching in Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1000

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Kim Wahl

Students found the sustainability topics interesting and valued the diverse classroom environment, though they felt the course content was less advanced than initially expected.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.89 GPA, 92.6% A/AB (n=27 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.82 GPA, 88.7% A/AB (n=62 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.54 GPA, 74.1% A/AB (n=85 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Kim Wahl

Assignments lacked clear expectations and a consistent rhythm, which made it difficult for students to pace themselves and caused unnecessary stress.

Past student reviews · Kim Wahl

One student found the class confusing because the instructor changed assignments frequently and did not release the syllabus until the first day of class.

Topics

  • Complexity, resilience, ecological literacy, global climate change, economics, food systems, energy, sustainable development, and social equity
  • Interrelationships among environmental, social, and economic problems and solutions for sustainable systems

Skills

  • Systems thinking for solving sustainability problems
  • Implementing sustainable practices and enacting sustainable development

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ENVIRST 215 · Spring 2027

Sustainability

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:360:026881",
    "course_id": "ENVIRST 215",
    "course_uid": "course_2aa03036fe7771e101563d38",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026881",
    "source_subject_id": "360",
    "title": "Sustainability",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "96f3ef66e6e6101485b3d1a286e587486b5350df612e5209cf44756ba3d4077a",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}