Overall Rating Platinum
Overall Score 85.50
Liaison Breeana Sylvas
Submission Date Feb. 28, 2022

STARS v2.2

University of California, Merced
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Michael Dawson
Professor
Life & Environmental Sciences
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution offer at least one immersive, sustainability-focused educational study program that is one week or more in length?:
Yes

A brief description of the sustainability-focused immersive program(s) offered by the institution:
Carson House: Sustainable Futures Living Learning Community at UC Merced provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a sustainable economic, social and environmental way of living that preserves the ability of current and future generations to meet their and others' needs.

The living learning community is a shared co-curricular experience within the residence halls offered for an entire academic year. Faculty, staff and students embrace this opportunity to build sustainability into every aspect of the campus. Our community provides opportunities to engage with the campus vision and to explore the positive roles that individuals, teams and societies play in interacting with and protecting the environment. Carson House seeks to deepen and build the skills needed to create sustainable futures through partnerships on campus and in the surrounding community.

Additionally, Spark Seminars introduce students to life at a research university. The seminar allows students to focus on the nature of inquiry by exploring a particular topic over a semester, engaging with campus and local resources, generating research questions, and presenting original ideas in writing and other forms of communication. Topics are broad enough to be viewed from multiple perspectives, but focused enough to engage with the issues of the topic in some depth. Topics are related to an area of research and/or interest to the instructor allowing students to engage with a faculty member who is sharing his or her expertise and passions. Spark courses include but are not limited to,
-Renewable Energy Facts & Applications
-Global Grand Challenges
-Food Deserts in Merced

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s immersive education programs is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
For more information please visit the links below.

https://ue.ucmerced.edu/academics/college-one/core-course-series
https://ge.ucmerced.edu/spark

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