This course is part of WI's "Connecting for Change: A Learning Series," designed with youth and young adults in mind. Course participants engage in weekly 90-minute Zoom sessions and interact through forum posts and other activities on our online learning platform. Additionally, all participants complete a community project, applying their learning to a local context of their choice. Learners should expect to dedicate approximately five hours per week to the course. Topics are thoughtfully selected to address pressing social issues in the United States.

Course Summary

Are you troubled by the poverty and suffering of people at home and abroad, concerned about the future of your children, and worried about the destruction of the environment on which their lives depend? These are the challenges of sustainable development, requiring a fundamental transformation in the economic, social and environmental actions of your life and society. This course will explore the profound implications of scientific and spiritual principles for sustainability. We need both science and religion to ensure the future prosperity of humankind.

Today the nations have agreed on Sustainable Development Goals with detailed targets and indicators that define how to reach sustainability by 2030, leaving no one behind. We shall explore the concept of sustainability in all its dimensions, and how an ethical and spiritual transformation will motivate people to transform their individual lifestyles and their local communities as essential steps towards a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable future. The course presents a Bahá’í perspective which is by definition inclusive of all religions.