Saving the planet starts in your own backyard and the University of Tasmania’s Sustainable Living course can equip you with everything you need to know to put your green thumb to work.
Most people choose to study the Diploma of Sustainable Living part time, taking just one or two units at a time. However it can be completed in as little as a year for those looking to undertake full-time study.
This accessible, 100% online course is designed to help you learn about sustainability on local, national and international levels, teaching practical knowledge about sustainability, and how to apply it to in your home, community, business or social enterprise.
The course is also eligible for a 100% HECS and Student Services and Amenities Fee waiver for students commencing in 2025, this means you can study Sustainable Living without paying a thing.
Among the topics available to study are Backyard Biodiversity, and the Science of Gardening, which have become popular options for those wanting to learn ways to be more sustainable at home.
Graduate Kelly Pinner grew up in a home where her family always kept a large vegetable garden and preserved fruits by making jam. As she rediscovered those old methods of reducing waste and making things last, Kelly started thinking more about what the modern equivalents were.
So, she enrolled in the Diploma of Sustainable Living hoping to improve her own sustainable lifestyle.
“It was fascinating! So much of it was familiar to me already, like reduce, reuse, recycle,” she said. “But also I experienced a lot of frustration that there were so many other concepts and strategies that I’d never heard of until I went to uni to study them.
“Things like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the whole world should be participating in that but how many people even know about them? So I started banging on about this stuff to anyone who would listen.”
Fellow Diploma graduate Beth Rad also studied the course with the intent to reduce her own environmental footprint and says the course made a huge difference to her life and she is more inspired to make a change.
“Waste reduction is one of the greatest sustainability challenges we face but also one of the easiest for us all to contribute to,” she said. “We now compost 100% of our waste at home. We don’t even have a rubbish bin any more. We’ve changed our buying habits.
“We are at an extremely important point in Earth’s history at the moment and we all have an important part to play in the future of it. And you’re being given an opportunity to study, for free, to help implement change in your community.”
If you want learn how to lead the sustainability charge from your own home, a Diploma of Sustainable Living can equip you with the knowledge you need.