Accessibility

We want everyone to be able to use this site and its course materials. Sustainabilityscience.org aims to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, the standard adopted by the Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy.

In practice, this means the site is designed to work with screen readers and keyboard navigation, to provide text alternatives for images, to maintain sufficient color contrast, and to remain usable when text is enlarged.

Known limitations

We are actively working through the following, and note them here in the interest of transparency:

• PDF documents. The course library contains many PDF documents (teaching cases, unit guides, and game guides). Some of these do not yet have the internal tagging that screen readers rely on. We are remediating them on a rolling basis, prioritizing the most heavily used documents. If you need a specific document in an accessible format in the meantime, contact us and we will prioritize it.
• Interactive simulations. The course’s learning games (the Fishbanks simulation and NetLogo models) are visual, interactive tools provided by third parties and are not fully accessible to screen-reader users. The core lessons of each game are also conveyed in the accompanying written guides and debrief readings, which we are happy to help any student or instructor use as an alternative.
• Linked external content. Course readings link to many external sites and publishers whose accessibility we do not control.

Tell us if something isn’t working

If you encounter a barrier anywhere on this site — a document that won’t read, a control that can’t be reached by keyboard, an image without a useful description — please email Alicia G. Harley. We will do our best to fix the problem promptly or provide the content in a form that works for you.

Last updated July 2026.