MSc&T students start the new academic year with a mandatory training on sustainable development
Nearly 160 new students in the Masters of Science & Technology (MSc&T) program started their new academic year on September 8th and 9th with a training session to raise awareness of the challenges of the energy transition and the climate challenge.
During this compulsory training, they took part in an interactive quiz on the challenges of the ecological transition and their orders of magnitude, followed by two lectures on the major problems that climate change poses for biodiversity.
The Sulitest was presented to them and they will have to pass it in order to validate ECTS credits (European Credits Transfer System). The Sustainability Literacy Test, or Sulitest, is a knowledge test based on the Sustainable Development Goals, recommended by paleoclimatologist and IPCC member Jean Jouzel in his report on awareness and training in sustainable development issues in higher education, submitted on February 16, 2022 to the French Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.
They were also encouraged to enroll in the Sustainable Development Certificate set up by Ecole Polytechnique. This certificate is obtained at the end of the program by validating the courses and conferences mainly taken in the 2nd and 3rd years of Ingénieur polytechnicien program or during the two years of the Master's program.
To obtain the certificate students must also undertake at least five courses labelled "Competence - Sustainable Development" as well as participating in eight thematic conferences. The attendance of one of these courses could be replaced by the participation in the Student Challenge of the interdisciplinary Energy4Climate Center (E4C). Finally, an assessment report on Social and Environmental Responsibility (SER) issues of the host company or research laboratory for the internship must be completed on the basis of a questioning grid, previously provided.
During the international symposium "Reflections: Researching, Training and Acting for Sustainable Development", organized in June 2019, Ecole Polytechnique took five major commitments that have been implemented in two years: training all its students on the challenges of sustainable development, setting up a sustainable development training certification, creating an interdisciplinary Center on Renewable Energies (E4C), launching an international student challenge dedicated to the energy transition, and aiming for a carbon-neutral campus in 2050. With the publication of its Climate Plan in early 2022, the School has placed the climate and ecological emergency at the heart of its missions.