Using a Masters Course to Explore the Challenges and Opportunities of Incorporating Sustainability into a Range of Educational Contexts (original) (raw)
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Our World, Our Futures: Transforming Education Through Environmental and Sustainability Education
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Environmental and sustainability education is critical to the world we live in today. Our World, Our Futures, a small-scale, cross-cultural participatory study, explored what transformative environmental and global citizenship education might look like in primary schools across two contexts. The study aimed to explore how teachers innovate curriculum through a flexible, cross-curricular approach within the constraints of the existing formal school curriculum. Informed by a culturally situated, responsive approach to researching with students and teachers, the research team supported the teachers in developing learning activities that forefronted the students' situated knowledge, ideas and concerns about the environment. The students were invited to create and share art and other texts reflecting their perspectives on local environmental issues, their aspirations for their future spaces and their active roles as global citizens. Teachers were invited to reflect on how, and the extent to which, ideas of global citizenship, environmental and sustainability education can be incorporated into the curriculum, exploring how the project supported teachers' pedagogical praxis, autonomy and professional learning. Through these activities, data such as teacher interviews, classroom observations and artefacts of student work were gathered. The data were analysed to identify ways in which students' cross-cultural dialogue developed along with teachers' pedagogical development in integrating transformative and contextually relevant pedagogical approaches for delivery of environmental and sustainability education. The findings demonstrate the complexities and challenges of collaborating across distances, cultures and time zones, and of using virtual platforms. Finally, the findings present curriculum development as a lived, dynamic and experimental process that develops teacher autonomy and professional learning.
Experiences of and lessons from teaching Education for Sustainability
Proceedings of the Irish Association for Social, Scientific and Environmental Education Annual Conference 2013 MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF A GLOBALISED WORLD
The UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, which will come to an end in 2014, has generated interest around the world not only in how we develop sustainably, but in how education can encourage and enable people to play their part in transforming humanity’s unsustainable practices at individual, local and global levels. Such education should allow every human to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. Information abounds in the media about the impacts of climate change, economic collapse and environmental degradation, as well as about the many community and higher level efforts being made to address these challenges. However, despite the “Guidelines and Recommendations for Reorienting Teacher Education to Address Sustainability” set out by UNESCO (2005), Education for Sustainability (EfS) is still not widely accepted as an integral part of our education systems and in initial teacher education (ITE), where the most significant multiplier effect can be created, EfS is rarely addressed beyond the confines of particular courses or modules . In this paper we will share our experiences of teaching EfS to small cohorts of primary ITE student teachers in the UK and in Ireland, and will consider student responses to the various modules taught. In the UK, a science specialist cohort undertook a module delivered largely through a problem-based approach with a strong focus on EfS. The students unanimously reported that they felt that they learned more about the issues relating to sustainability and science. However, they remained unconfident about using sustainability-based science in their own teaching. As these and other responses will show, several difficulties and challenges arise when students receive teaching in what are essentially single modules in EfS. In addressing these difficulties we will suggest that a whole-institution approach is essential if education is not only to be about sustainability but also sustainable. We will consider the work of Summers who successfully embedded ESD in the Cert Ed curriculum at Somerset College in the UK, including the benefits arising from the use of more creative methodologies to develop ESD. EfS at modular level remains limited – it may be ‘adaptive’ in approach but only working within the current education paradigm. By working within the current systems rather than changing and rethinking these very systems that have created the problems, it does not allow for addressing the underlying values and attitudes. We argue that a more coherent approach is needed where EfS is addressed at a whole college level which will allow for critical thinking about education itself, the values underpinning it and the ways in which it happens.
Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability, 2018
Sustainable education and education for sustainable development (ESD) have witnessed a deserved number of research studies in the recent years. The present article proposes a holistic research framework for the research on sustainable education and education for sustainable development in the 21st century. The article aims to choose a more holistic research perspective by avoiding a piecemeal approach in education research. Moreover, it proposes some strategically important ideas about the use of approaches and methods for sustaining the generational readiness for sustainable development. The paper proposes a general framework for pedagogy and practice for ESD research which is open, holistic, strategic, sustainable, and integrated. A broader perspective has been developed as the relation of the ecological–cultural–social environment aspects seen in a broader adaptive evolutionary sense as a condition necessary for the development of a human species and the development of these cond...
Learning for change: an educational contribution to sustainability science
Transition to sustainability is a search for ways to improve the social capacity to guide interactions between nature and society toward a more sustainable future and thus a process of social learning in its broadest sense. Accordingly it is not only learning that is at issue but education and educational science, of which the latter is about exploring the preconditions of and opportunities for learning and education – whether individual or social, in formal or informal settings. Analyzing how educational science deals with the challenge of sustainability leads to two complementary approaches: the ‘outside-in’-approach sees the idea of sustainability influencing educational practice and the way the relationship of learning and teaching is reviewed, theoretically as well as within the social context. In an ‘inside-out’-approach, an overview is given of how educational science can contribute to the field of sustainability science. An examination of the literature on education and sustainability shows that while sustainability features prominently in one form or another across all sectors, only little work can be found dealing with the contributions of educational within sustainability science. However, as sustainability is a concept that not only influences educational practices, but also invites disciplinary contributions to foster inter- and transdisciplinary research within the sustainability discourse, the question remains how and to what extent educational science in particular can contribute to sustainability science in terms of an ‘inside-out’-approach. In this paper we reconstruct the emergence of education for sustainable development as a distinctive field of educational science and introduce and discuss three areas of sustainability research and throw into relief the unique contribution that educational science can make to individual action and behavior change, to organizational change and social learning and finally to inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.
Going Deeply into Education for Sustainability
The extraordinary ‘coming-together’ of Education for Sustainability (EfS) has brought about new relations between education and environment. The United Nations Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD 2005-214) has highlighted the importance of education in a sustainable future and the central role of young people in this work. As educators, we see multiple and indistinct programs and pedagogies of EfS emerge. We are equally inspired, activated, overworked and confused. How can we provide our young people with empowering experiences of being valued and encourage them to inquire, discuss and creatively problem solve...as well as to switch off lights and put out the bins? In this essay I will outline some examples of work that can re-connect the essential elements of EfS and the ways in which this work can be done in primary and secondary educational settings.
Sustainability, 2021
The crises societies face today contribute to a rather challenging life setting that demands in-depth reflection, daring new thinking, and change urgently. Transformative education for a sustainable future is needed today more than ever before; the aim of this paper is an exploration of its goal and pedagogy. By drawing on diverse bodies of knowledge, including the structure-agency debate and the theory of critical pedagogy, this paper critically discusses Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and its goal of sustainable development. It identifies areas where ESD needs enhancement given the present socio-economic and cultural context and ultimately proposes the transformation of ESD to Education for Eco-communities—which highlights the need for community-centered approaches, knowledge, and observation of natural laws, sociological imagination, and political acumen—to render it better suited for the challenges of the 21st century.
2021
As higher education institutions (HEIs) have increasingly turned to consider sustainability over the last decade, education for sustainable development (ESD) has emerged as a way of imbuing students with the skills, values, knowledge, and attributes to live, work, and create change in societies facing complex and cross-cutting sustainability challenges. However, the question of how HEIs can actively embed ESD more broadly in and across curricula is one that continues to challenge institutions and the HE sector as a whole. While traditional teaching practices and methods associated with subject-based learning may be suitable for educating students about sustainable development, a reorientation towards more transformational, experiential and action-oriented methods is required to educate for s ustainable development. The need for educators to share their practices and learn lessons from each other is essential in this transformation. This paper presents a selection of practical examples of how to embed a range of interactive, exploratory, action-oriented, problem-based, experiential and transformative ESD offerings into HE teaching practice and curricula. Presented by a group of academics and professional services staff at the University of Strathclyde who lead key modules and programmes in the institution's ESD provision, this paper reflects on five approaches taken across the four faculties at Open Peer Review Reviewer Status
Introduction This is a summary of the review prepared as context for various stakeholder consultations concerning the development of a framework for the new Strathclyde Masters programme in Sustainability (SMS). The document briefly outlines the theories of Sustainable Development (SD) and examines literature and studies investigating ESD undertaken by various research institutions. These studies have been summarised to provide information on possible approaches to ESD, guidance on the consultation process to be undertaken, and thoughts on current practice and teaching methods.
IntechOpen eBooks, 2024
Over the past decade, there has been a compelling discourse on transitioning from a rational paradigm, steeped in functionalist and utilitarian models, to a paradigm more aligned with the preservation of natural resources and life. This shift is crucial for addressing the urgent need to integrate sustainable principles into the educational sphere, with the aim of instigating a genuine cultural transformation. Recognizing the global impact of social, economic, and environmental challenges, numerous international entities advocate for an ambitious, complex, and transformative approach to sustainability in education. This scholarly work explores the intricate relationship between education, cultural change, and sustainability. It provides a comprehensive overview of the educational landscape, critically examining objectives, foundations, challenges in environmental education, and avenues for improvement. The narrative highlights aspects that positively influence conceptual development and educational practices. Moreover, it delves into innovative approaches for addressing environmental issues and steering society toward a more sustainable future. The work concludes by proposing pragmatic solutions to propel the envisioned changes forward.
Education For Sustainable Development And Primary School Curricula: A Complex Triangle
Geographiedidaktische Forschungen, vol. 42, p. 58-65, 2007
The aim of this theoretical paper is to reflect on the trans-disciplinary nature of EE and ESD. Considering the proper position of this subject in Primary School Curricula, is trans-discipline an advantage or a limit? Recent international literature has underlined the difference between Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development (Jickling, 2005; McKeown & Hopkins, 2003; Sterling, 2003), developed the theme of sustainability in higher education (Wals & Jickling, 2002) and defined education as a permanent process (Demetrio, 2003). However, in many cases in Europe, Environmental Education has kept its own undefined position in Primary School Curricula. In fact EE is considered to be a cross-disciplinary subject. This transversal nature might generate some epistemological and methodological confusion. This confusion refers to E.E. issues, goals and didactics, in particular considering the central role played by “best practices”. In Primary School EE is often connected with different subjects, such as Geography and Science, supplied with more solid (and older) epistemological bases. This “limit” might even be considered an advantage, because Geography (of course also Science) could be used as an “external support” to validate EE didactics and objects. Re-reading the International Charter on Geographical Education, some important contributes on geography and epistemology and comparing three National Curricula (the Italian, the French and the English ones), we present a possible way to consider Geography a support for the “external validation”.