Campus Sustainability and Information Literacy for First Year Students: Preserving the University’s Environment for the Future

What are universities doing today to preserve their environments for the future? How can the academic curriculum support campus sustainability efforts? How can librarians integrate information literacy in campus/STEM sustainability research? At Fresno State in California, incoming first year STEM students are part of a special research class designed to teach basic scientific research skills focusing on sustainability efforts. In addition, this research program is designed to recruit and retain first year STEM majors from women and underrepresented groups. This paper covers the academic librarian’s and six student teaching assistant’s experiences and examples of supporting campus sustainability research that utilizes information literacy skills. For the past three years, the academic librarian has been embedded in planning campus sustainability programs and research to support this effort. The paper provides a brief overview of the research questions and problems that students encountered from the levels of air pollution on campus to biodiversity in the campus gardens to food waste management. The paper will consider these questions, instruments, and the results to design their own campus/school sustainability program that integrates information literacy and research skills for their students and classes. The paper also shares the students’ perspectives and feedback on their experiences in learning and researching sustainability as a student and as an instructional student assistant at Fresno State.