Many perspectives were covered in Thursday 6th of April's first In-depth Session on Education for Sustainability, with implications for how we teach and learn for a more sustainable world, both inside and outside the classroom. In the first in-depth session, a diverse group of 40 people gathered to sink into the details of how to educate and prepare UT students to contribute to a more sustainable world and to prepare them for the climate crisis.
The Climate Initiative/Center presented an update of their vision for Climate Education ‘Ikigai’ that “Prepares and empowers students to contribute to a better world through the analysis and use of technology in a societal context.” The Japanese concept was applied as an intersection of what we love, what we are good at, what we are paid for, and what the world needs. It was noted that as well as solutions – such as for climate change, skilled people and design interventions - that we also need a deep-rooted understanding of the problems causing the climate and ecological crisis. We recognised that we also need to unlearn and change unsustainable practices to better prepare our students and to set an example as an organisation.
Alex Baker - Friesen, Green Hub coordinator, also shared some examples – varying from youth-driven climate education, to activist-catalysed compulsory climate courses, and university-wide curriculum greening programmatic approaches. These were reflected on, from perspectives of hope and inspiration, but also of realism and problem recognition.
Fishbowl setting
In a facilitated Fishbowl setting, community members contributed their views on five guiding questions. These aimed to trigger discussion on what we mean by education for sustainability and climate, how to motivate and equip students to lead sustainability transformation in their respective fields, and, how we can support teachers in the transition to greening our courses and programmes. We also focussed on how to offer open, interdisciplinary education of the climate and ecological crises, as well as broadening beyond climate and ecosystem, reframing sustainability as systemic change. Imperative too, for some participants was to maintain an intersectional lens on class, privilege, access to knowledge, and other dimensions of socioeconomic strife that affect the lives of the global majority. The final question centred on concretely envisioning the changes we want to see in our education system, as well as how to actually measure the impact of sustainability education on students' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour.
Some common ground was also achieved on the ‘Shell question’ with one XR activist and Green Hub officer making the incisive remark that, indeed, Shell “are a necessary part of the work to become more sustainable; if they don’t change, we don’t meet the goal”. There seemed to be some agreement that if we are to ‘take them by the hand’, then they need to earn our trust back.
The session was rounded off by our Rector, Tom Veldkamp, who emphasised awareness as the mandatory part, to see how we embed that, we need to work together to discover all the nuggets. The devil is in the details. No quick promises, but action will follow! For more information on the Sustainability Dialogues and upcoming sessions, please visit our website.
