Summer 2005

Education for sustainability

Making the invisible, visible

Education for Sustainability (EfS) is complex and vast. It is about finding ways for everyone to learn to value and seek a balance between social, environmental and economic factors within and between many cultural contexts. Sue Coad presents the challenge for making our world more visible to a new kind of scrutiny—

‘We have to learn to see the world anew.’

(Albert Einstein)

Some aspects of sustainability education are easier to make visible than others, for example monitoring tools for energy consumption and air quality. However, making aspects of deep learning and change more visible is a complex challenge. But we must succeed if sustainability is to be achieved. Furthermore, being able to cross-check the congruency of our behaviour choices with our world views, paradigms, beliefs and values (seeing with the heart) is an even more fundamental challenge.

Seeing is believing

Many aspects of sustainable lifestyles will be improved as we continue to develop the technology (simple and complex) to see our individual environmental impact. Immediate and graphic visual images from around the globe help us to understand that resources are not fairly shared, that extreme weather events are a reality, that we are all inextricably interconnected on this planet of finite resources.

In visits to and discussions with each of the 22 South Australian Sustainable Schools and Children’s Services Initiative (SSACSI) sites www.capitalprograms.sa.edu.au/pages/default/17561  I have been impressed by how children and students are using technologies as significant tools in learning for sustainability.

Preschoolers at one Adelaide site were ecstatic over the rain gauge that had been placed on their fence, eagerly checking it. Excitement grew when it started to rain and they could measure how much had fallen (‘heaps of millimetres,’ one pronounced). The staff reported enormous growth in interest in rain and water and where it goes. Children tapped knowingly on the sides of the rainwater tanks to check water levels and learned about the importance of water storage and reuse. More learning was planned around the question of why water needed to be conserved.

In a primary school, staff and students were exploring ways to have the temperature, electricity consumption, and Greenhouse Gas emissions electronically displayed in each building. Their aim is to monitor and take control of the optimum working temperature of the space for people, the environment and costs.

In a secondary school, students had just completed a waste audit and taken an impressive array of photos, pie charts and bar graphs to a staff meeting. The response from the teachers was, ‘Why didn’t you tell us? How can we help?’

Because sustainability involves many diverse perspectives, concepts, and complex issues—all encased in cultural variations and contexts— there is an imperative to collect, refine and develop other tools to help us bring the less tangible aspects of sustainability into closer view. For example, how do we measure and use information about ‘authentic’ student voice in changing decision-making structures and processes in schools and the local community?

The role of educators

The role of educators, in conjunction with students and the community, is to collaboratively develop and use new lenses that enable us to see learning about sustainability and for sustainability. Indeed Dr Stephen Sterling, EfS expert from the United Kingdom, would say ‘learning as sustainability’. This means not only new ways of physically seeing the world but of interpreting the information through an ecological paradigm. This involves ongoing reflection and reviewing of current paradigms. Our educational sites and their communities need to become models of sustainability so that achieving both educational and environmental outcomes are co-connected and are part of our everyday business.

Learning and pedagogy

Education for sustainability requires thinking, inquiring, problem-solving and innovation in partnership with teachers, students and communities. The required pedagogy must be highly motivating through active, hands-on, real-life experiences (with local and global thinking), and a strong sense of purpose. The most powerful motivator for learning is survival. We have to connect and engage with this in constructive ways

Curriculum

When we engage in learning as sustainability, curriculum revolves and focuses around sustainability. For example, literacy and numeracy are essential tools for better understanding, interpreting, and communicating about sustainability. They are not an end in themselves. Effective sustainability education focuses on providing a wide range of tools and strategies to make the invisible visible in talking about, understanding, evaluating and making choices for more sustainable lifestyles. It involves the whole community.

Some learning and thinking tools

A wide range of learning and thinking tools is available to support making the invisible visible in areas that are difficult to grasp, areas such as thoughts, assumptions and values.

Ecological footprinting www.footprintnetwork.org/index.php  is useful for making visible our ‘footprint’ as individuals, schools, and communities. It is useful for monitoring the main areas of ecological impact and redressing the balance. For example, we may not be able to stop using the car but we can achieve some form of footprint ‘balance’ in eating less meat and using less electricity. Instead of my regular watch, which motivates me to check and adjust my schedules, I dream of a ‘Footprint Watch’ that I can check throughout the day to inspire me to adjust my footprint.

Rubrics www.rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php  are an authentic assessment tool that can guide learning in many aspects of sustainability. On a continuum of levels, it is easy to plot the position of current development and also to identify future areas for growth. These are best developed cooperatively, so that many community perspectives are incorporated through learning processes. What is valued and important is presented for collective viewing, and a common language and agreement on priorities for action is developed.

Stephen Sterling in his ‘Levels of Knowing’ diagram challenges us to think more deeply about what is driving understanding and knowing regarding sustainability. Too often we act on assumptions rather than look into how our deeper worldviews may be inhibiting our ability to engage in change for sustainability. There is a challenge to continue to learn and grow. Environmental action is central to the deep learning and thinking that Sterling says are necessary for change—‘learning is change’ and ‘change is learning’.

Making a difference

Making a difference is about making informed choices. The more ways we can make the invisible nature of sustainability education visible, the more likely we will be to engage with other people in living more sustainably.

References

Sterling, S (2001). Sustainable Education: Re-visioning Learning and Change, Schumacher Briefings, Green Books, Dartington, UK.

Sterling, S (2004). ‘ Making Connections: Towards a Collaborative Culture in Education’, public lecture, 29 January 2004, Adelaide.

Sue Coad is a curriculum officer in Sustainability Education with the South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage.

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