Martin Braun ~ STEM staff tutor

Sustainability is one of the defining societal challenges of our time, and higher education has a crucial role to play in helping learners understand both its scientific foundations and its wider social implications. For some disciplines, this connection is obvious. For others, physics among them is less so.

An eSTEeM funded project brought together colleagues from across The Open University who explored whether sustainability can be embedded into physics modules in ways that are authentic, achievable, and educationally meaningful.

The answer, based on evidence from three undergraduate physics modules, is a clear and encouraging yes.

Why sustainability in physics matters

Physics is often characterised as a “hard, pure” discipline, focused on abstract models, mathematical formalism, and universal laws. This has historically pushed social and environmental considerations to the margins of the curriculum. Yet physics underpins many of the systems at the heart of sustainability debates: energy generation, climate modelling, materials, transport, and infrastructure.

Recent external drivers, including the QAA Physics Subject Benchmark Statement (2025), now explicitly encourage sustainability to be included in physics degrees. Internally, the OU’s commitment to environmental sustainability and civic responsibility strengthens this imperative. The challenge is doing so in ways that preserve disciplinary integrity and do not add unsustainable workload for staff.

The eSTEeM project addressed this challenge by reframing sustainability not as additional content, but as visibility and relevance. Rather than asking where new topics could be added, the team asked where sustainability was already present, but implicit.

A light touch, discipline authentic approach

The project focused on three core undergraduate modules, SM123 (Level 1), S217 (Level 2) and SM381 (Level 3) reaching over 1,300 physics students. The approach followed three main steps.

First, a bespoke VLE audit tool was developed to examine modules week by week. This allowed student and associate lecturer auditors to identify points where existing activities already aligned with sustainability ideas, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or Key Sustainability Competencies (KSCs) such as systems thinking, futures thinking and strategic action.

Second, sustainability was made explicit but lightweight. Short introductions to the KSCs were added to module materials, and relevant competencies were clearly signposted within existing activities. Importantly, this did not require rewriting core content or changing learning outcomes.

Third, sustainability was reinforced through assessment using brief reflective prompts embedded in selected assessment points. These prompts encouraged students to consider the wider implications of their disciplinary learning without increasing marking burden for tutors.

This “light touch” model was deliberately designed to be scalable, realistic, and transferable.

What difference did it make?

Evaluation used pre‑ and post‑intervention surveys with a control group. The clearest impact was on student awareness.

After the interventions:

• Awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals increased from 22.5% to 34.7%.
• Awareness of Key Sustainability Competencies rose from 14% to 26.3%.
• Students were significantly more likely to agree that their physics module was related to environmental sustainability.

These changes were not observed in the control group, suggesting that explicit signposting rather than general exposure to physics content made the difference. While attitudes and behaviours were more resistant to change, the project did identify small but statistically significant shifts in some energy saving practices, consistent with wider research showing that awareness is often the first step in longer term change.

Small changes, lasting value

Perhaps the most significant lesson from this work is that meaningful progress does not always require radical redesign. By making sustainability visible, rather than reinventing curricula, the project shows how modest, well-designed interventions can deliver educational, strategic, and societal value.

Recommendations moving forward

The outcome of the project points to several practical suggestions for future sustainability embedding projects:

• Introduce sustainability early and revisit it consistently across a qualification.
• Use audit tools during module review cycles to identify natural integration points.
• Make sustainability frameworks explicit through clearly signposted competencies.
• Reinforce sustainability concepts across multiple touchpoints in a learning journey i.e., beginning, development of knowledge, and assessment.

While survey limitations mean the findings should be interpreted with care, the overall picture is positive.  “Light touch” embedding works, particularly when the aim is to elevate student awareness and understanding of the application of sustainability.

The next challenge, shifting values and deeper behavioural drivers, will require longer term, sustained design work. But the project has already shown that even disciplines not traditionally aligned with sustainability can connect meaningfully with it.

 

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Are you looking for some inspiration to convert your sustainability ambitions to real world learning opportunities in your learning materials? Then have a look at this page on OpenLearn.

If you’d like to talk with the Learning Design team at The Open University about any design related support you’d find useful for your organisation or department, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at: [email protected].

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Reference:

Braun et al (2026) Engaging physics students with the key competencies for sustainability through reflective assessment tasks. Available at:  https://www5.open.ac.uk/scholarship-and-innovation/esteem/projects/themes/innovative-assessment/engaging-physics-students-with-key-competencies-sustainability

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