Purpose: The Brigham Young University General Education Wellness Program has three options available to students to fulfill the programs requirement. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of these three wellness options. Specifically we wanted to know; does the university wellness requirement affect student nutrition and physical activity behaviors and do the various options available differ in their abilities to impact student nutrition and physical activity behaviors? Methods: A three-group pretest/posttest design was used and a survey was administered, at both the beginning and end of the semester, to all students enrolled in HEPE 129, live and online, and all 100 level Physical Education activity classes. The final study design included 303 student responses from HEPE live, 551 responses from HEPE online and 270 responses from the activity classes. Data analysis of between and within group differences was conducted for each nutrition and physical activity behavior. Results: HEPE online students had small but significant improvements in estimated VO2 max, and in the percentage of students who ate bran or whole grain cereal once/day or more. The activity classes increased significantly for almost all of the physical activity behaviors including estimated VO2 max, days/week of moderate activity, and the percent of students getting 30 minutes/day of vigorous activity, but only one of the nutrition behaviors, whole wheat food intake. HEPE live students increased for every variable, some more significantly than others. Conclusion: These findings suggest that of the three wellness options offered at Brigham Young University, the HEPE live class had the largest impact on improving nutrition and physical activity behaviors across a one semester time period, the activity classes had the next largest impact, and HEPE online had the least impact.

Nationwide, higher education institutions are increasingly interested in infusing sustainability content into their curricula. The world is facing complex and interconnected problems creating a need for college graduates with an understanding of the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability. There is a shortage of research studying sustainability-related teaching practices, particularly in higher education contexts. The University of Vermont (UVM) recently established Sustainability Learning Outcomes (SLOs) as a general education requirement. As a result of this initiative, sustainability-designated courses are offered across the university that fulfill the requirement, creating a unique opportunity to explore related teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to explore how instructors structured and taught the SLOs, how students learned UVM's SLOs, and which teaching practices students found helpful to their learning, within courses designed to meet this general education requirement. To systematically gather people's perceptions of and experiences with the new general education requirement, this study used the following methods: 1) instructor interviews; 2) course document reviews; 3) classroom observations; 4) student focus groups; and 5) an online student survey. Data were collected from eight sustainability-designated courses. The variety of data collection methods enabled identification and triangulation of strong themes. Instructors used class discussions, papers, readings, projects, guest speakers, case studies, and reflective activities to teach sustainability content and skills. Students reported the following teaching practices as particularly helpful: experiencing a real world application, discussing sustainability issues in class, exploring different perspectives, and hosting guest speakers. Moreover, certain instructional methods may be better received with students with prior exposure to sustainability content. Findings suggest that learning from case studies, guest speakers, and written papers may be more helpful to students with higher levels of prior exposure to sustainability courses. This study's findings add to what we know about how instructors teach sustainability content and students' experiences of their teaching practices. They also suggest a number of implications for policy and practice around supporting professional development opportunities in teaching practices and assessment strategies, creating a teaching culture of experimentation and reflection, and using a variety of methods to assess teaching and learning.