Summer 2005

Education for sustainability

Living the triple bottom line

The two statements, Educating for a Sustainable Future and Global Perspectives, give us some broad guidelines for working together for a more sustainable future. Cathy McNicol provides first hand insight.

The average Australian treads heavily on the earth with a consumption of renewable natural resources, an ecological footprint, of 7.1 hectares per person. Compare this to the average African or Asian consumer of less than 1.4 hectares per person. The ecological footprint of the average world consumer in 1999 was 2.3 hectares per person, or 20 percent above the earth’s biological capacity of 1.9 hectares per person. We are living beyond our means environmentally and we cannot continue to live in this debt. Creation of a sustainable future is an essential response to this current state to ensure future generations are able to meet their needs.

Make it happen

Creating a sustainable future is dependent on having the financial resources to pay for it and the political and social will to make it happen. We might see this as a form of ‘triple bottom line’ accounting on a personal, national or global scale. As individuals, we need to consider our spending and personal abilities as we try to reduce our environmental impacts. Although at times we may feel our small efforts to reduce our ecological footprint will not make a great difference, developing awareness of our environment and the impact our lifestyle has on it, and learning to work better with others, shows us that a global community response is both necessary and possible. Our responsibilities as citizens are both local and global and ability to perform these is influenced by economic, social and environmental balance sheets.

Towards a common goal

Educating for a Sustainable Future: A National Environmental Education Statement for Australian Schools (Curriculum Corporation, 2005) provides a vision and framework for schools to achieve sustainability. It has much in common with the view outlined in Global Perspectives: A statement on global education for Australian schools (Curriculum Corporation, 2003). Both broadly outline the need for learning about the environment and developing the social and political skills to take action to create a sustainable future. They both acknowledge the need for a whole school approach through the expression of a shared vision of the underlying values of the school community, demonstrated through a spirit of cooperation, democratic decision making and interaction with the wider community. Both integrate the goals of conservation, social justice, cultural diversity, appropriate development and democracy for the imperative of sustainability. Both advocate a cross-curricular approach to developing the deep understandings, skills and values to take action for a better world.

Interdependence of the environment and people is a key aspect of both an environmental and a global perspective. Both recognise the impact of people on environments and how the environment shapes human activities; the way cultural, socioeconomic and political systems affect decisions about the environment; and the value of indigenous knowledge. An environmental perspective emphasises the understandings of ecosystems, biodiversity and natural cycles to assist students in making sense of data and evaluate their own actions. In complementary contrast, a global perspective emphasises the rights and identities of culturally diverse people, the dimensions of change and its differing impacts on people and the importance of conflict resolution and peace-building to assist students in questioning inequality and developing skills to take action for positive change.

Both documents outline broad learning objectives to develop understandings, skills and values and apply these in active and real world situations to develop a sense of optimism about the future, balanced with a realistic understanding of the difficulties and challenges ahead. There are many different themes based around the use of water, energy, food production and lifestyles which could be developed using both perspectives and acknowledging the interaction of the financial, people and environmental resources necessary for a sustainable future.

Taking action

Learning experiences based on the local environment help students make connections between their own behaviours—the way they make decisions about their consumption and interact with their community to protect the environment—and the world beyond their classroom. An example of this is the year three students at Killara Primary School, Sunbury, Victoria who studied their local creek and developed a range of ‘real world’ understandings.

Students gathered data on the health of the creek by testing temperature, stream flow, turbidity, pH and salt levels with the assistance of an expert from the local water company. They noted the presence of animal life and concluded that Blind Creek was extremely dirty and had high levels of acidity and salt, making it unsuitable for many macro-invertebrates.

After surveying older students about their ideas for the protection and development of the creek area, they wrote to the local council with their plans to protect the creek. These included planting trees and native grasses and putting hay bales along the banks and in the creek to lower turbidity; requesting the tip managers, farmers and the people further up Blind Creek to limit runoff into the creek; and limiting rubbish by placing collection grids in the creek and dog waste bag holders and bins in the reserve along the creek. They acknowledged their responsibility by promising to actively support the plan with plantings and continuing to monitoring the creek and fauna.

Although the council did no more than acknowledge their letter, there were long-term benefits in terms of student awareness of people’s impact on the environment and their ability to exercise their civic rights. Social connections were also fostered as older students expressed their admiration for the passion and energy of the younger students and the development and expression of their ideas. The students have continued to care for the environment with school plantings and reduced rubbish levels.

These students were able to link environmental protection with social action to influence attitudes and change. They became aware of the connection betweeneconomicc factors and change. Being tuned into their own water-ways and the exercising of their rights to express opinions to decision makers, these students were easily able to consider access to water, protection of the environment and decision-making from a global perspective using a variety of information sources such as case studies, literature and film. Learning about how people in other countries manage water resources extended student thinking and understanding about diversity of opinions and priorities, and provided new insights into managing their own environment.

As global citizens, we have a responsibility to work together for a sustainable world. This means learning both about the environment and how to work with people who view the world differently. It also means recognising the role of economic development in improving the efficiency of resource use and overcoming poverty. Pressure on the environment and the gap between rich and poor mean tensions can too easily turn into conflict, destroying any social capital we have built up.

The knowledge, skills, values and commitment to action developed through an environmental and global perspective inspire us as teachers to work for a more sustainable future. Both Educating for a Sustainable Future and Global Perspectives encourage us to learn more about our world, the environment and its people, and to work together for a more socially just community and to tread more lightly on the earth.

Website

www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/page1.html

Cathy McNicol manages the content development for the Global Education website.

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