Spring 2004

Talking Science

Tell Us How to Change the World

NSW’s Sustainable Living Program offers a program and incentives to help teachers better understand and educate for sustainability. ANDRE GRANT reports on some science projects already developed under the Program’s auspices and suggests others that might follow them.

Since the birth of environmental education in the 70s, science has been seen as the natural and obvious home for studies related to the environment. Recent developments in education and the way in which society views environmental problems have seen this old association evolve to become something more cross-disciplinary and potentially more exciting and engaging for students. In a sense, the scientific exploration of environmental problems has done more to highlight that human problems outnumber environmental ones.

How does this impact on how we teach about environment and science in schools and how can we get students excited about exploring these topics? The Sustainable Living Project at the University of New South Wales can help teachers find some exciting ways to engage students in exploring these issues in science, as well as in a range of key learning areas.

Next year marks the beginning of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–14), which is supported by a raft of documents, research, policy and international agreements that position it as a global driver of change for a sustainable global society. Education for Sustainability, as it is more commonly known in Australia, is an emerging, more multi-disciplinary, form of environmental education and presents many opportunities to enhance teaching in the classroom by adding a bit of colour, depth and excitement to topics of investigation. Traditionally, environmental education may have been seen as the realm of biology teachers looking into measuring various populations of pond life in local catchments and could have proceeded to investigate local biodiversity and the state of the environment. This represents a very effective education about the environment and has been highly successful at cultivating a strong awareness about environmental problems. However, in the words of Professor Stuart Hill from the University of Western Sydney, we are in danger of merely, yet highly effectively, ‘monitoring our extinction’!

There is a gap in translating this awareness of problems into an understanding of their root causes and the action required to change society and generate solutions. Greenhouse issues are a classic example of ‘problem paralysis’ where science has vast amounts of data on exactly the extent and nature of the problem yet little has changed. The connection between the scientific data and the required change in human action is where the real problem lies. In response to the need for a broadening of environmental education, the team at the Sustainable Living Project have been coordinating a national education program (‘Sustainable Living Competition’) since 1998 and offer a range of incentives to build the capacity of teachers to teach about and ultimately for sustainability in their classroom. Working closely with the United Nations Environment Programme, this program is developing tools to broaden the understanding of young people across Australia through supporting teachers to better understand and educate for sustainability.

Students creating a sustainable future?

Problem solving is a core skill that students require to address the challenges of the future generated by our currently unsustainable world. Yet, if we do not fully understand the true extent and nature of what exactly the problem is, how can we expect our young people to be able to fix the world they are about to inherit? In fact, most attempts to solve environmental problems have often led to the unearthing of more problems. Such is the nature of ‘environmental issues’, that in trying to solve one problem we realise there are a multitude of others that need solving first, and so on and so on. That is, effective problem solving involves acknowledging interrelationships and holistic worldviews. This is the challenge of Education for Sustainability.

Through a combination of inquiry-based learning, critical thinking and systems theory with a focus on educational outcomes, the Sustainable Living Project and the United Nations Environment Programme (through the international launch of the program in 2005) aim to engage thousands of secondary students in the exploration of the issues that underpin the current global malady. The aim is to foster the skills to understand the interconnected nature of the world’s problems and how innovative solutions can be found simply in changing the way we interpret and view the interaction between the ‘natural environment’ and the ‘built environment’. Exploration of these interactions within the context of sustainable living can provide for a range of syllabus outcomes in and beyond the science curriculum. Through actively engaging students in community issues we can add depth and context to our teaching, through realising the civic context—especially if students feel that they are part of a national and international network of young people who are actively creating a sustainable future. Recent research indicates that the current generation of young people has the greatest concern for the future and environmental issues, yet little hope or idea on how we change things. To a large extent, it is teachers who are best placed to help bridge this chasm.

Getting involved?

The Sustainable Living Competition has received some outstanding science projects in the past that demonstrate the extent to which young people are interpreting problems and applying science to investigate the question ‘What is sustainable?’ In 2003, a year 9 student from Lyneham High School in the ACT won the 2003 Research and Investigation Award for a remarkable science project. Committed to the reduction of greenhouse gases in domestic heating systems, Geetanjali Ganguly used this context to run a host of experiments to test her hypothesis about recovering heat from domestic central heating exhausts. Geetanjali simulated a household heating exhaust with a hair dryer and (with mentoring from a nuclear physicist at ANU) built a heat exchanger to recover heat to a model hot water system. She then proceeded to apply all her physics, chemistry and mathematics to collect, analyse and present her data in a beautifully crafted report.

Analysis of systems with conceptual tools, such as an ecological footprint calculator, lifecycle analysis or measuring embodied energy, can facilitate a range of learning outcomes by providing a framework for experimentation and data collection. For example, a range of data can be collected for entering into an online ecological footprint calculator for your entire school through the Powerhouse Museum’s Eco’tude online facility (www.powerhousemuseum.com/ ecotude/index.asp). Measuring thermal properties of the school’s bricks or solar gain across a school’s roof leads to analysing how sustainable the school buildings actually are. Investigation of ecosystems and natural cycles in biology (carbon cycles, nitrogen cycles, water cycles, etc) can provide valuable clues as to how our built (human made) environment could minimise and eliminate waste by clever design inspired by nature. A practical look at composting processes in waste from the school canteen gives invaluable hands-on experience of these biological processes at work.

This year, head of science at Dorrigo High School NSW, Ian Judd, has set his year 8 students on the path to designing a sustainable house as a unit of work. Students explore aspects of house design and energy use and present their design with model and brochure to a mock sustainable living conference at the end of term 3.

As a key youth education initiative of the upcoming United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Living Project and their outreach programs can help teachers educate for sustainability in the classroom. The program provides incentives through graded certificates from UNSW and UNEP, recognising all students’ participation in ‘creating a sustainable future’. Further incentives are provided by an annual awards ceremony, prizes and teacher resource networks to recognise and encourage gifted students, like Geetanjali, who go that step further in playing their part.

Andre Grant is education coordinator of the Sustainable Living Project, UNSW.

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