Lina Fowler

Scientists, engineers, writers, actors, military veterans, parents, and retired CEOs -- these are a few of the many backgrounds represented in SUST220, Change Leadership in Sustainability. To tackle climate change at a systems level, cross-disciplinary discourse must begin in the classroom.

My Role

As the head Teaching Assistant, I designed and led the class through a week-long design sprint fully personalized to the common interests and areas of expertise of these 50 students.

I got to know all 50 students—their backgrounds, interests, and goals—through conversations, LinkedIn, and personal websites. Then, I grouped their interests into different perspectives on the climate crisis.

I then applied these groups to a circular economy case study, showing how each perspective—whether policy, design, tech, or finance—could contribute to creating more sustainable, closed-loop solutions.

I took the class outside under the California sun, distributed big sheets of paper, sticky notes, and markers to make. Students brainstormed solo, then in small groups, before coming together to share and refine their action plans.

I leveraged embodied cognition for creativity by changing the setting to spark new ideas and using abundant, low-stakes materials like sticky notes to encourage risk-taking and rapid idea generation.

Students formed multi-step action plans to address climate issues from the perspective of their group's expertise.