The Sustainability Overlay is a General Education Requirement at Cal State East Bay; many courses from across the disciplines satisfy this requirement. Here is a list of Sustainability Overlay Courses. The Learning Outcomes are listed below: 

After completion of a course designated as fulfilling the Sustainability Overlay requirement, students will be able to:

1. identify the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, either in general or in relation to a specific problem;
2. analyze interactions between human activities and natural systems;
3. describe key threats to environmental sustainability; and
4. explain how individual and societal choices affect prospects for sustainability at the local, regional, and/or global levels.

Sustainability education, which is defined as learning to live today to protect future generations,  has become an increasingly important aspect of higher education. The Brundltand Report (1987) defined sustainability  as  living today in a way that ensures the continuing success of future generations, i.e. meeting people’s needs now, while not irreversibly  damaging the ecosystems and social and economic systems which sustain human life (Brundtland, G.H. 1987). The UN further developed this basic idea,  first with five sustainability development goals, then with the UN seventeen sustainability goals which are currently used. 

Sustainability generally is considered to contain three pillars: Social Equity, Environmental Protection, and Economic Viability. For more detailed information about the history of sustainability in Higher education and the three pillars, please see: The Association for Advancement of Sustainability In Higher Education (AASHE)

For more detailed history of Sustainability Education and view an image of how they are often depicted, click on: Twenty Five Years of Sustainability : A Critical Assessment.