Summer 2005

Education for sustainability

Different perspectives

The inclusion of fieldwork and a research action plan in the mandatory Stage 4/5 New South Wales Geography Syllabus offers ample opportunity for education for sustainability. Nick Hutchinson argues that education for sustainability is made more effective through teasing out the environment in its totality.

One of the two dimensions of the rich and complex discipline of geography, the ecological dimension, explains how humans interact with environments. Through the study of geography, students develop interest in, and informed and responsible attitudes towards, people, cultures, societies and environments, with a commitment to ecological sustainability.

Educating about, in and for the environment

In Stage 4 and 5 of the NSW Geography Syllabus, students have opportunities to develop knowledge and understanding of a number of environmental constructs. These include the use of natural resources and sustainability, environmental management and ecological sustainability.

Fieldwork is an essential part of the study of this geography curriculum, a practice that can enhance learning opportunities for a wide range of students because it caters for a variety of teaching and learning styles. In addition, students undertake significant fieldwork activities, including the development of a Research Action Plan, on one of the following topics: air quality, coastal management, land and water management, spatial inequality, urban growth and decline, or waste management. The ideas developed at the Tbilisi Conference (1977) ‘about, in and for the environment’ are clearly congruent with this emphasis on fieldwork and student-centred research.

Geographical issues are a further aspect of the syllabus where students gain an awareness of, and develop attitudes and values about, a range of issues of concern to people at different times and places. Issues-based study allows students to suggest possible solutions and participate in problem-solving. There is scope for immersion in the environment in its totality—natural and built, technological, social and cultural.

Sustainability objectives for rural communities

There are four key sustainability objectives for Australian rural communities. Agricultural sustainability is the ability of our farms to produce food and fibre into the foreseeable future; the ability of those farms to remain economically viable; social sustainability, where rural communities maintain their population numbers and other demographic characteristics; macro-economic sustainability, the economic systems that supply Australian and overseas markets; and ecological sustainability, an objective that permeates the other four objectives.

This construct enables a deeper understanding of a major syllabus focus, ‘ways in which communities in Australia are responding to change’, than the standard fare that is fed to students in the form of beautifully illustrated double page spreads in textbooks. Classroom geography can be stifling, as one student said: ‘Because all you do is watch babyish videos and learn about the same things every year, just in a bit more detail.’

Real-world decisions about real people

Geography is perfectly placed to deliver education for sustainable futures. Geography straddles the arts and the sciences, employs a wide spectrum of skills and is concerned with real-world decision making involving people and environments.

Geography teachers can see through the technocratic approaches to management of resources and environments that may be signalled by unquestioning eyes perusing the syllabus. Geography teachers are used to analysing the impacts of different perspectives on geographical issues.

Some geography teachers teach ‘values for sustainable living.’ Others advocate action, passionate about their teaching; their students are committed to the goals of environmental education. Others are concerned with critical thinking skills: Who makes the decisions about sustainable futures? How are they made? According to what criteria? Whose interests do they serve? What other perspectives could be countenanced?

Geography teachers who open their students to the possibilities contained in political economy, sociology, political ecology, critical studies and cultural studies enrich their students’ understanding of geography, make curriculum more relevant and facilitate change. Geography teachers explain that sustainability may be influenced by economic rationalism to the extent that it reflects current cultural and environmental viewpoints influenced by the free market, globalisation and the pursuit of profit.

The sustainability of the Amazon rainforests is often taught in geography lessons. A political ecology perspective would: look at the relationships of the impoverished landowners to the impoverished soil where poor management deepens poverty; examine the biophysical stability and vulnerability of large tracts of forest, the machinations of local landowners, environmental demands of gold miners and desires of indigenous peoples; examine these in the context of government road building programs, the global demand for soy beans, and the lack of cooperation between a left-leaning government and the administration of the United States.

Critical theorists argue that the modern nation state must manage the economy while maintaining the support of the majority of the electorate. Challenged by the failure to simultaneously engineer rising profits, full employment, social welfare and a safe and healthy environment, it creates political ‘spin’ but people lose faith in both the political institutions and liberal democracy. This can explain student apathy towards society and politics, their reluctance to engage in active citizenship and sustainable futures. Conversely, an understanding of critical theory can empower students to work towards sustainable futures.

The cultural turn in geography enables teachers to start with the lived experiences of students recognising how geographical imaginations are being stimulated by film, video, graffiti, popular music and computer games. If such texts can be examined and prised open to reveal their meanings, then significant education for sustainable futures can be accomplished. Geographer John Morgan has even illustrated how the film The Full Monty can be used to examine the sustainable future of industrial Sheffield, with other readings of gender, post-industrialism and gendered space.

Cultural sustainability is important as far as indigenous knowledge about education for sustainable futures is concerned. In the mandatory geography courses, students consider the importance of land to Aboriginal Australians and other indigenous people in contemporary society, for cultural and economic reasons. By gaining an understanding of the unique relationship that indigenous peoples have to the land, students are able to view contemporary social and political issues involving indigenous peoples, locally and globally, from a range of viewpoints.

A sense of cultural sustainability also exists in relation to factors that contribute to an Australian community’s sense of identity. The unpaid community work of women in rural areas not only provides the social glue that helps the community adapt to various contingencies but also creates positive enduring relationships that underpin the community’s sense of identity and sense of place.

From spaceship to Google Earth

Geography has a rich tradition to draw upon to deliver education for sustainable futures. Long before Google Earth, geographers have recognised the ‘earth as a little spaceship on which we travel together’.

Geography teachers know the things that work best in the classroom and the field. Taking groups of students to Pigface Point in New South Wales to engage with educator Dr Ted Trainer is most instructive: ‘I have gardens, chickens, rabbits, a sheep and a goat to mow the lawn. I have solar panels for electricity, I collect the rain water from the roof, cut my own firewood, wear old and patched clothes and have built a house.’

A holistic systems approach works very effectively. Threats to Narrabeen Lagoon in northern Sydney have included inputs from septic tanks, meat processing, a municipal tip, golf course fertilisers and urban stormwater. Engaging in deep knowledge is better. One student, Rowena, was debriefing after an extensive role-play. She cut to the nub of the matter: ‘Rich countries really have no concern or care as to the well-being of poorer countries … This problem is a spiral effect, each problem adds to another. There is no easy solution; we cannot all consume ever increasing amounts. Someday we must reach the upper limit, and the world will become a wasteland.’

Effective questioning and acute listening skills are also mighty effective.

‘In Year 7, our geography teacher had an incredible ability to have the whole class on the edge of their seats. She’d ask a question of the class, one of those why or how questions that, if you think about, with a bit of luck, you can work out.’

The mandatory Stage 4/5 NSW Geography Syllabus offers ample opportunity for education for sustainability. And a geographical imagination encourages deep understanding of the illusive holistic construct ‘sustainability’.

References

The Tbilisi Declaration (1977) available at www.gdrc.org/uem/ee/tbilisi.html

Morgan, J (2003). ‘Cultural Studies Goes to School’ in Geography, Geographical Association, pp.222–224.

Nick Hutchinson is a lecturer in Education, Australian Centre for Educational Studies at the Macquarie University.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au