essay about education for sustainable development

Community Works Journal—Online Magazine for Educators FEATURED ESSAY EDUCATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY Reflections on the What, Why and How of Education for Sustainability By KIM RAKOW BERNIER Kim Rakow Bernier is the Outreach Director at a nonprofit organization called Facing the Future () and the Co-Chair of the K-12 and Teacher Education Sector of the U.S. Partnership for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (). She has facilitated over 200 professional development workshops and keynote presentations on integrating global sustainability into the K-12 classroom at conventions including ASCD, American Association of School Administrators, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, National Council for the Social Studies, and National Science Teachers Association. When I work with educators around the country on integrating global issues and sustainability into the curriculum, I often start with a visioning exercise. I ask them to respond to the statement, What do you think the world will look like in 50 years?  The responses to this question are overwhelmingly negative: there will be more crime, more pollution, overpopulation, less tolerance, etc. Before allowing the audience to wallow for too long in the depressing nature of the dystopia they've just imagined, I ask a slightly different question, What do you want the future to look like in 50 years?  Changing just one word in this question yields very different responses. Now educators excitedly explain their visions: a world where everyone gets enough to eat every day, the air and water are clean, neighborhoods are walkable, and local and global communities are thriving. A subtle shift in language empowers teachers and students to think about what we want our future to look like. I do this exercise because it demonstrates the.
Only available on StudyMode Read full document → Save to my library Education for Sustainable development – strategies for School Improvement Investigation of strategies for education for sustainable development and School improvement. 1. Introduction a. Rationale The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) would like all schools to be sustainable by 2020 and to prepare students for a lifetime of sustainable living through its teaching, its fabric and its day to day activities. It is guided by a commitment to care for oneself, for each other and for the environment itself. Sustainable development can build coherence amongst a variety of initiatives and school practises it offers schools a bigger picture in which to join up their work on a range of policies and initiatives such as every child matters, school travel planning, healthy living, school food, extended services, citizenship and learning outside the class room. It is essential that schools recognise the potential of sustainable development to transform the experiences and outcomes of pupils whilst improving the environmental performance of the school and contributing to sustainable communities. in doing so it is essential that education for sustainable development is an aspect of a schools improvement plan in meeting government target for 2020. The National framework for sustainable schools established by the government to help schools understand what they need to do to achieve this aim comprises of three interlocking parts: A commitment to care; an integrated approach; and a selection of doorways or sustainability themes. b. Defining Education for Sustainable Development Sustainable development is a term that has many and varying definitions it is a challenge that all societies face during the 21st Century by endorsing education for sustainable development we commit ourselves to improving the.
Education is an essential tool for achieving sustainability. People around the world recognize that current economic development trends are not sustainable and that public awareness, education, and training are key to moving society toward sustainability. Beyond that, there is little agreement. People argue about the meaning of sustainable development and whether or not it is attainable. They have different visions of what sustainable societies will look like and how they will function. These same people wonder why educators have not moved more quickly to develop education for sustainability (EfS) programs. The lack of agreement and definition have stymied efforts to move education for sustainable development (ESD) forward. It is curious to note that while we have difficulty envisioning a sustainable world, we have no difficulty identifying what is unsustainable in our societies. We can rapidly create a laundry list of problems - inefficient use of energy, lack of water conservation, increased pollution, abuses of human rights, overuse of personal transportation, consumerism, etc. But we should not chide ourselves because we lack a clear definition of sustainability. Indeed, many truly great concepts of the human world - among them democracy and justice - are hard to define and have multiple expressions in cultures around the world. In the Toolkit, we use three terms synonymously and interchangeably: education for sustainable development (ESD), education for sustainability (EfS), and sustainability education (SE). We use ESD most often, because it is the terminology used frequently at the international level and within UN documents. Locally or nationally, the ESD effort may be named or described in many ways because of language and cultural differences. As with all work related to sustainable development, the name and the content must be locally relevant and.