Education For Sustainable Human And Environmental Systems

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.

This open access book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools, and communities to achieve the twin twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being. For much of the twentieth century, Western education systems prepared students to enter the workforce, contribute to society and succeed in relatively predictable contexts. Today, people are at the controls of the planet-making decisions that are dramatically reshaping social, economic, and environmental systems at a global scale. What is education's purpose in this new reality? What and how must we learn now? The volatility and uncertainty caused by digitalization, globalization, and climate change weave a common backdrop through each chapter. Using case studies drawn from Finland and the US, chapter authors explore various aspects of learning and education system design through the lenses of sustainability and human well-being to evaluate how our understanding and practice of education must transform. Using their scholarly research and experience as practitioners, the authors propose new approaches to preparing learners for a new frontier of the human experience fraught with risks but full of opportunity. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This open access book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools, and communities to achieve the twin twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being. For much of the twentieth century, Western education systems prepared students to enter the workforce, contribute to society and succeed in relatively predictable contexts. Today, people are at the controls of the planet—making decisions that are dramatically reshaping social, economic, and environmental systems at a global scale. What is education’s purpose in this new reality? What and how must we learn now? The volatility and uncertainty caused by digitalization, globalization, and climate change weave a common backdrop through each chapter. Using case studies drawn from Finland and the US, chapter authors explore various aspects of learning and education system design through the lenses of sustainability and human well-being to evaluate how our understanding and practice of education must transform. Using their scholarly research and experience as practitioners, the authors propose new approaches to preparing learners for a new frontier of the human experience fraught with risks but full of opportunity.

How do we equip learners with the values, knowledge, skills, and motivation to help achieve economic, social and ecological well-being? How can universities make a major contribution towards a more sustainable future? Amid rising expectations on HE from professional associations, funders, policy makers, and undergraduates, and increasing interest amongst academics and senior management, a growing number of higher education institutions are taking the lead in embracing sustainability. This response does not only include greening the campus but also transforming curricula and teaching and learning. This book explains why this is necessary and - crucially - how to do it. Bringing together the experience of the HEFCE funded Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) at the University of Plymouth and the Higher Education Academy's Education for Sustainable Development Project, the book distills out the curriculum contributions of a wide range of disciplinary areas to sustainability. The first part of the book provides background on the current status of sustainability within higher education, including chapters discussing interdisciplinarity, international perspectives and pedagogy. The second part features 13 chapter case studies from teachers and lecturers in diverse disciplines, describing what has worked, how and why - and what hasn't. Whilst the book is organised by traditional disciplines, the authors and editors emphasise transferable lessons and interdisciplinarity so that readers can learn from examples outside their own area to embed sustainability within their own curricula and teaching. Subject areas covered include: geography, environmental and Earth Sciences, nursing/health, law, dance, drama, music, engineering, media and cultural studies, art and design, theology, social work, economics, languages, education, business and built environment.

In order to yield the expected benefits, sustainability initiatives need to be undertaken by means of a close cooperation between universities on the one hand, and societal partners on the others. The principle of co-creation and co-execution of sustainability initiatives increases the value for all by mutual learning, and the sharing of expertise and resources. But pursuing sustainability initiatives with a community and societal involvement is not simple. There is a perceived need for a better understanding of how universities can interact with society, in order to support the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book is an attempt to address this need, by a novel approach which focuses on current potentials and challenges, across a wide range of fields and expertise. The book focuses on how the theory and practice of sustainable development interact and shows the need for a continuation of the dialogue among sustainability academics and practitioners, so as to address the issues, matters and problems at hand. The spectrum of themes addressed on this book also entails how environmental values and ethics are applied and the relationship between social, biological and cultural diversity. It also includes a broad disciplinary approach to sustainability, including education, research and case studies, and the links with human–environment relations in a sustainable development context.

Environmental education and education for sustainable development have become features of many countries’ formal education systems. To date, however, there have been few attempts to explore what such learning looks and feels like from the perspective of the learners. Based on in-depth empirical studies in school and university classrooms, this book presents rich insights into the complexities and dynamics of students’ environmental learning. The authors show how careful analysis of students’ environmental learning experiences can provide powerful pointers for future practice, policy and research. Environmental Learning will be a key resource for educators, teacher educators, decision-makers and researchers involved in education and sustainable development.

This timely collection surveys and critiques studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy since the mid-1990s. The volume draws on a wide range of policy studies and syntheses to provide readers with insights into the international genealogy and priorities of ESE policy. Editors and contributors call for renewed attention to the possibilities for future directions in light of previously published work and innovations in scholarship. They also offer critical commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings. Including a wide range of examples of ESE policy and policy research, the book draws on studies of educational initiatives and legislation, policy making processes and rhetoric, ideological orthodoxy and critique, curriculum making and educational theory, globalisation and neoliberalism, climate change and environmental worldviews, and much more. In addition, introductory commentary from the editors traces how ESE researchers have dealt with key trends, complexities and issues in the policy-practice-research nexus both conceptually and empirically. Throughout the collection, contributions illustrate how researchers might reimagine and reinvigorate policy research on ESE, including how working with other fields and diverse perspectives, ideas and expertise will aid the cross-fertilisation of a complex terrain of ideas, policy and practice. This book is based on a special issue of Environmental Education Research.

This book introduces readers to the latest research and findings from projects focusing on teaching education for sustainable development at universities. In particular, it describes practical experiences, outline courses, training schemes and other initiatives aimed at promoting better teaching on matters related to sustainable development at institutions of higher education. In order to meet the pressing need for publications to support sustainable development education, the book places special emphasis on state-of-the art descriptions of approaches, methods, initiatives and projects from around the world, illustrating how teaching education for sustainable development can be implemented at the international scale. The book represents a timely contribution to the dissemination of approaches and methods that may improve the way we perceive the importance of teaching education for sustainable development, as well as how we implement it.