This book illustrates how sustainability, information technologies, and envisioning the future can be effectively woven into an integrated educational experience. By understanding what it takes to build a sustainable community, students will develop the skills needed to engage successfully in a sustainable society. Using the real world as their classroom, they will participate in gathering and analyzing data, clarifying values, listening, speaking, thinking creatively, and making decisions about their community.
Sustainability is a powerful force that is fundamentally reshaping humanity’s relationship to the natural world and is ushering in the Age of Integration. The move from well-intentioned environmental friendliness to the higher bar of integral sustainability and regenerative design demands a new type of design professional, one that is deeply collaborative, ethically grounded, empathically connected and technologically empowered. As a response, this book argues for a great leap forward in design education: from an individualistic and competitive model casually focused on greening; to a new approach defined by an integral consciousness, shaped by the values of inclusivity and cooperation, and implemented by a series of integrative behaviors including: an ethically infused design brief a co-creative design process on-going value engineering pre-emptive engineering design validation through simulation on-line enabled integrated learning the use of well vetted rating systems. This book contains the integral frameworks, whole system change methodologies and intrinsic values that will assist professors and their students in an authentic and effective pursuit of design education for a sustainable future.
To integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning was the overarching goal of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). This, it was believed, would ‘save the planet’, encouraging behaviour changes to allow for the development of a more sustainable and just society for all. Awareness of sustainable development has risen enormously in recent years, challenging us, as individuals and as families, workplaces, and communities (both local and global), to think about and act upon the major issue which we face. The Decade reaffirmed the United Nations’ commitment to the crucial role of education and learning in the pursuit of sustainable development, and the need for far-reaching changes in the way education is often practised. Of course, the very idea that education should be for something (whether sustainable development or anything else), remains as questionable as ever. Nevertheless the instigation of the Decade clearly recognised the need for intensified efforts to achieve sustainable development. This book reflects on the role and impact of the Decade in helping to reorient education towards sustainability, and looks forward, beyond the end of the Decade and its achievements, to contemplate the way ahead, giving special attention to case studies and the state of affairs in England. The authors offer different perspectives on the effectiveness and value of particular initiatives and practices that are responses to the Decade. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Curriculum Journal.
This book will enable teachers and managers in the post-compulsory sector to consider a range of approaches to embed Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in their practice in the post-compulsory sector. There will be the opportunity to consider key debates, useful links and suggested reading to encourage further investigation and development of practice. Fundamentally, this book aims to empower teachers to critically analyse ESD through their own subject specialisms, engage in the debate and learn with their students. Democratic and participative approaches introduced will help readers to question traditional transmissive styles of teaching and learning and move on to the radical and transformative approaches required to embrace ESD. Therefore this book, whilst including illustrative examples, will encourage the reader to look at their own subject specialisms, practice, interests and those of their students to co-construct a curriculum that embeds ESD.
'To summarise, this book has a clear academic justification and is aptly outlined with examples of creative and relevant ideas that could easily be adapted and implemented in many fields - particularly for those subject areas that were intentionally omitted. Readers can easily navigate to their field of interest and the book would be a highly recommended resource for many, including the student market, academics, practitioners, policy makers and senior managers.'Nancy El-Farargy, A Guide to Publications in the Physical Sciences
Reimagining Digital Learning for Sustainable Development is a comprehensive playbook for education leaders, policy makers, and other key stakeholders leading the modernization of learning and development in their institutions as they build a high value knowledge economy and prepare learners for jobs that don't yet exist. Currently, nearly every aspect of human activity, including the ways we absorb and apply learning, is influenced by disruptive digital technologies. The jobs available today are no longer predicators of future employment, and current and future workforce members will need to augment their competencies through a lifetime of continuous upskilling and reskilling to meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This book features curated insights and real-world cases from thought leaders throughout the world and identifies major shifts in content formats, pedagogic approaches, technology frameworks, user and design experiences, and learner roles and expectations that will reshape our institutions, including those in emerging economies. The agile, lean, and cost-effective strategies proposed here will function in scalable and flexible bandwidth environments, enabling education leaders and practitioners to transform brick-and-mortar learning organizations into digital and blended ecosystems and to achieve the United Nation’s ambitious Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Chapter 18 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Over the past decade there has been a growing interest in sustainability education in colleges and universities across the United States, with a marked increase in the number of undergraduate and graduate degree programs, research institutes, and centers focused on sustainability. Evidence-based core competencies for interdisciplinary sustainability programs can provide suitable guidance for curricular and program development, research, policy, communication, and pedagogical approaches at academic institutions. They can also serve as a guide for students to select academic programs and potential career options, a reference for employers to understand qualifications of graduates, and the foundation for a potential specialized accreditation for interdisciplinary sustainability programs. The growing demand for well-qualified sustainability professionals within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors also points to the value of developing core competencies. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels provides expert insights for strengthening the emerging discipline of sustainability in higher education in the United States. This report describes the local, national, and global landscape related to sustainability education; examines the history and current status of sustainability education programs in the United States and globally; discusses employment prospects for sustainability graduates in terms of the opportunities and the skills that employers seek; and addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion in sustainability-related education and employment.
Exposes the faulty assumptions that underlie modern education in the areas of moral education, creativity, and intelligence, showing how these assumptions must be changed in order to produce an ecologically sustainable culture.
The goal of Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) education is to prepare students to facilitate social learning in communities that builds knowledge of, capacity for, and commitment to sustainability to facilitate the emergence of sustainable societies. The SHES approach to sustainability education relies on complexity-based systems thinking that transcends disciplinary boundaries. This book provides a comprehensive guide to the SHES approach, including its rationale and theoretical foundation, its pedagogy and practical applications in curricula, and ways to support the approach through institutional administration. This book will be of great interest to academics and students of education, environmental sciences and studies, sustainability and sustainable development, natural resource management, conservation, environmental policy, environmental planning, and related fields in higher education. Educators can use this book as a guide to SHES pedagogy, curriculum design, sustainability, environmental studies, sustainable development, and sustainable well-being. Administrators will find the book useful in establishing, evaluating, staffing, and promoting programs based on the SHES approach.
