Education for Sustainable Development: Model-Based Inquiry Using Composting Toilets and Microbiome Data Science in Higher Education

Sustainability education, as endorsed by the United Nations to address the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, poses challenges due to the extensive spatial and temporal scales of global issues. In this novel, semester-long project, The Poo-tastic Project: A Deep Dive into Sustainable Sanitation with Composting Toilet Microbiology, course content was anchored to microbiome bioinformatics and composting toilets (CT) through Model-Based Inquiry (MBI) and a central driving question (CDQ). Throughout multiple iterations, student groups progressively linked course content to group illustrations and individual papers, increasing in complexity and detail with each version. This prepared them for the final group presentation, where students applied their acquired knowledge to an environmental or human health issue of their choosing. Student feedback demonstrates the value of the project’s innovative course design and its ability to promote global, critical, and creative thinking. This article presents the design and implementation of the project and is accompanied by examples of student work and supporting assignments.