Sustainability Education

This special issue entitled 'Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development' was organised and edited by Dr Edgar Javier González-Gaudiano who, as his brief biography indicates, works as an advisor for the Secretariat of Public Education, in ...

As we are living amid an unprecedent environmental crisis, the need for schools to empower students into environmental citizenship is intensifying. Teachers are considered as the main driving force in fostering students’ environmental citizenship. However, a critical question is how teachers conceive environmental citizenship and whether their perceptions of environmental citizenship are well-informed. There is an urgent need to investigate teachers’ perceptions, considering their crucial role in the formation of students’ environmental citizenship. This study examines teachers’ perceptions of environmental citizenship through a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical studies. The selected studies (n = 16) were published in peer-reviewed journals during the timespan of the last twenty-five (25) years (1995–2020). The thematic findings of this review revealed that teachers’ perceptions: (a) manifest a relatively decreased understanding of environmental citizensh...

Engaging with beauty can orient mind, heart and action in this era of ecological destruction. First, I present a vision of beauty that acknowledges some of its common critiques while salvaging it from claims that it is merely subjective, or worse, destructive. I then focus on how the ecological crisis elicits and invites participation in actions towards vulnerable things and the beauty they invoke. I reflect on my life experiences and engagements with art to help understand the possibilities and power in the beauty of vulnerable things and of actions towards them. While I acknowledge and address some difficulties with beauty as the basis for action, I suggest it is better suited to engage the ecological crisis than appealing to emotions such as hope or relying on prevalent ethical approaches. I end the paper by considering the transformative role aesthetics should play in reimagining subject focus, interdisciplinarity and character development in school curricula and pedagogy aimed at sustainability.

The effective use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for community education for sustainability (EfS) can promote understanding and action of community members regarding local sustainability issues. ICT tools and features, such as online EfS websites, have the potential to be designed, shaped and delivered in a locally relevant and meaningful way based on social and cultural perspectives and needs.
The objective of this model is to empower community members to address relevant sustainability issues affecting the local community. The model is based on theoretical considerations from ICT, EfS, and community education recommended in the literature as effective approaches for the achievement of socio-ecologically sustainable communities. A systems thinking approach guides the combination of these theoretical considerations, and the design process of online learning systems for community EfS.

Paper Presented at the Australian Association for Environmental Education 2014, Hobart, Tasmania.

The study aims to clarify how transformative education teaching and learning ideas have been incorporated into sustainable development-focused education in Bhutan. Sustainable development is included in various ways in the Educating for Gross National Happiness Training Manual (GNH TM) developed by the Ministry of Education of Bhutan in 2013. GNH-focused education aims at developing students’ respect and critical thinking for the well-being of human beings and the environment. The article provides an overview of 26 selected articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 1991–2021. Altogether, 12 sustainable development-focused transformative education articles were analyzed in detail using qualitative content analysis. The results of the study show that transformative education is reflected in many ways in the teaching goals, objectives, contents, and methods introduced in the GNH TM units. Consequently, transformative education and teaching have become part of teachin...

As we are living amid an unprecedent environmental crisis, the need for schools to empower students into environmental citizenship is intensifying. Teachers are considered as the main driving force in fostering students’ environmental citizenship. However, a critical question is how teachers conceive environmental citizenship and whether their perceptions of environmental citizenship are well-informed. There is an urgent need to investigate teachers’ perceptions, considering their crucial role in the formation of students’ environmental citizenship. This study examines teachers’ perceptions of environmental citizenship through a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical studies. The selected studies (n = 16) were published in peer-reviewed journals during the timespan of the last twenty-five (25) years (1995–2020). The thematic findings of this review revealed that teachers’ perceptions: (a) manifest a relatively decreased understanding of environmental citizensh...

The growing importance of sustainability to the hospitality and tourism industry has resulted in an increased pedagogical discussion pertaining to how to incorporate sustainability into the undergraduate curriculum. The previous discussion has largely focused on the need to teach sustainability within the hospitality and tourism curriculum (Deale et al., 2009), and determining hospitality and tourism stakeholders’ attitudes towards teaching sustainability in the curriculum (Barber et al., 2011). Despite the strong interest in sustainability, Deale et al. (2009) article reveals that sustainability is rarely taught within the curriculum. This study moves the discussion away from should sustainability be taught within the hospitality and tourism curriculum towards a discussion of how to best teach sustainability within the curriculum. This article suggests that an integrated sustainability curriculum will provide students with a better education and better preparation for the hospitality and tourism profession than limiting its inclusion to specific classes or majors. Part of this recommendation for integration of sustainability into the hospitality and tourism curriculum is a proposed model that demonstrates the need to view sustainability as the ultimate context of focus and hospitality and tourism as a subcomponent of this focus. Having sustainability as the end goal of hospitality and tourism will result in natural integration of sustainability into the curriculum because sustainability is the main context of interest. The difficulties and challenges of integrating sustainability into the curriculum are also discussed, as well as, suggestions to help facilitate the process

An important goal for sustainability education is to learn negotiation, problem solving and decision-making skills through
discussions about ecological, social, economic, and ethical principles concerning local and global responsibility in their
own life. Through memorable, experiential, and active processes, students learn to discuss their own value selection and
to evaluate phenomena and sources of information critically. In this article, we aim to identify suitable pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning green chemistry among college students and preservice teachers by examining the teaching methods that have been used to promote green chemistry education (GCE) and how these methods have
supported green chemistry learning (GCL).

Sustainability is an idea that affects every sector, every part of society and that
everyone should be aware of. There are a few sectors that perhaps need to act hastily on
this issue, and the construction sector is one of them. In order to prevent or minimize
the damage caused by the construction industry to nature, a lot of work falls on not only
the industry but also the academy. In this sense, interior architecture students who will
be responsible for the built environment in their professional life should learn the principles
of sustainable design in their undergraduate education. In this study, an elective
course proposal was prepared for interior architecture students in the light of the data
obtained from the previous study.

During this shifting of historical epochs, the "usual ways of doing things" is catalysing existential questions about the survival of humanity. Yet, it is precisely these points of severe disruption where the creation of something more complex and life-giving can evolve. In this article, we explore how the dominant Separation Paradigm has created the current disruptive socio-natural conditions. Individuals and societies steeped within the Separation Paradigm are unwittingly destructive, because they do not perceive, and thus unintentionally sever, the incomprehensibly relational nature of our universe. We summarise the overarching dynamics of the Separation Paradigm and critique how existent learning processes, including sustainability education, are reproducing the Separation Paradigm. A salve to the diverse manifestations of Separation, we describe multiple sources of the Relationality Paradigm as well as implications for relational ways of knowing and being, through an interweaving of theoretical and personal vignettes. Finally, we sketch the implications of a possible worldview transformation for educators and processes of education, particularly within transformative sustainability education. IZOBRAŽEVATI MED VELIKO TRANSFORMACIJO: ODNOSNOST IN TRANSFORMATIVNO TRAJNOSTNO IZOBRAŽEVANJE-POVZETEK Velikanski zgodovinski premiki, ki jih doživljamo v tem času, pod vprašaj postavljajo »običajen način, kako počnemo stvari«, in vodijo do eksistencialnih vprašanj o preživetju človeštva. Prav obdobja veli-kanskih sprememb pa so tista, v katerih se lahko razvije nekaj kompleksnega in življenjsko pomembnega.

The human species' adaptive advantage is driven by its ability to build new material structures and artefacts. Engineering is the modern manifestation of this building instinct, and its advent has made the construction and use of technologies the central pattern of human life. In parallel, efficiency, the over-arching narrative driving technology and related life practices, has pervaded most occupations as a value, forming a cultural backdrop that implicitly guides decisions and behaviour. We examine the process through which this backdrop has developed, and argue that it emerged through the constant presence and use of built artefacts and structures, which function as manifestations of the engineering value of efficiency. The constant presence and use of built structures leads to the slow percolation of their building values into society, forming a cultural narrative that emphasises efficiency. This narrative then feeds back, to further reinforce efficiency-driven engineering processes. This loop creates a runaway building system that is highly resistant to change, even when faced G. DATE, D. DUTTA and S. CHANDRASEKHARAN 2 Environmental Values with the prospect of the species going extinct. Any effort towards sustainability can be successful only when this all-pervading-and hence invisible-building loop is made explicit, and compensated for, through a counter-loop where building manifests sustainable engineering values. As a first step in revealing this structure, we characterise the emergence of the efficiency value as a cultural narrative, and analyse its wide-ranging environmental effects. We then present the design principle of 'Solving for Pattern' (SfP) as an illustrative contrast case. SfP, first articulated by Wendell Berry, focuses on interconnect-edness and flourishing of all species as central design principles. We argue that these ecological principles can be extended to engineering, and can thus support the development of a robust operational-level building movement that manifests value systems oriented towards sustainability. To ground this proposal in actual practice, we outline two case studies of technology design that illustrates SfP. We also discuss three cases that illustrate SfP at a larger scale, and examine how these extend existing design approaches such as systems engineering. We conclude with a proposal to include SfP in engineering education curricula, to facilitate a faster cultural shift towards flourishing, which is required given the limited time window available to move to sustainable building practices.

Sustainable Development (SD) has often been defined as it was originally framed within the 1987 Brundtland Report as development which: " …meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs " (WCED, 1987, p.43). In our ongoing efforts to achieve an Education for Sustainable Development it is clear that we must address the most pressing unsustainable challenges of our local contexts and simultaneously contribute towards global efforts to promote an education for sustainable citizenship. Recent years have seen an increasing emphasis upon the identification of children at risk of poor wellbeing and health and the development of interventions that may reduce their long-term harm. In global terms, young children are recognised as the first, and the worse affected victims of climate change, natural and environmental destruction. Since 1987 there has been growing recognition of the importance of priority being given to the needs of the world's least advantaged, and also on current and future environmental limitations for development (Little and Green, 2009). In a commissioned review of the progress made in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) during the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-14). Pramling-Samuelsson and Siraj-Blatchford (2013) adopted an alternative definition informed by Sen (2013). Sen's 'capability' centred approach to sustainable development aimed to " integrate the idea of sustainability with the perspective of freedom, so that we see human beings not merely as creatures who have needs but primarily as people whose freedoms really matter " (ibid, p.6). Pramling-Samuelsson and Siraj-Blatchford (2013) followed the principle of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, arguing that our definition of Sustainable Development must account for children's agency and the recognition that provisions had to be made to support their participation in the ongoing achievement of more sustainable futures. Sustainable Development was therefore defined in Sen's (2013, p5) terms as " development that promotes the capabilities of present people [including children] without compromising the capabilities of future generations " (Sen 2013, p. 5, with authors parenthesis). Since the 1980s we have seen an ever greater recognition of both the interdependence and fragility of global ecosystems. These have culminated in the institution of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, provide quality lifelong education for every child, and to promote peaceful, inclusive and sustainable societies. They build upon the prior UN commitments reflected in the Millennium Development Goals but go well beyond these, and have been framed to apply to all the nations of the world and not just those in most urgent need. In terms of early childhood, the SDGs include goals and targets related to child health and protection, early childhood education, and the reduction of inequality. As Britto (2015) has suggested: " Investments in ECD [early childhood education] are fiscally smart, given the multiplier effect of ECD across several goals. But, they are also scientifically credible and morally correct. Let us affirm our commitment to the Global Goals by giving every child a fair chance in life from the start " (p1). Pramling-Samuelsson and Siraj-Blatchford's (2013) review argued for more 'joined-up' integrated thinking in ECCE as it related to sustainable development, and it argued that integrated cross-generational initiatives, and other major early childhood initiatives on health, and on Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in preschools made a strong contribution to sustainable development but were often neglected from accounts of ECCE and sustainability. UNESCO should adopt a more integrated approach to match the significant efforts being made around the world to develop

Environmental education (EE) has a history of support for critical place- based pedagogy as a means of learning through engagement in space, both cultural and biophysical. In this paper I tell the story of how Franco – a non-white, non-American undergraduate – engaged with local discourses in a watershed-focused EE program in the rural Midwestern US. I examine how the five tenets of critical race theory (CRT) can be used to interpret Franco’s experience, where he encountered multiple instances of racism and xenophobia. I argue that without a critical analysis of race in place-based EE programs, instructors may (a) privilege their own ways of knowing in local settings, (b) rely on ‘grit’ narratives as mechanisms for mediation of racism, and (c) send non-white students home having learned that they cannot effect meaningful change for sustainability. I conclude with recommendations for faculty in predominantly white institutions on how CRT might foster the development of critical consciousness of race in place-based EE programs.

Este artigo vem mostrar uma possível utilização dos games na construção de conhecimento com o método da pesquisa–ação participativa nas áreas de agroecologia, engenharia de pesca e economia solidária. O trabalho apresenta o estado inicial das atividades do Projeto Pirarucu-Gente, um projeto de pesquisa e extensão voltado para a assessoria, capacitação e mudança social. O projeto tem como objetivo assessorar agricultores, pescadores artesanais e piscicultores da região denominada Território Central da Cidadania de Rondônia na utilização de práticas sustentáveis de gestão de empreendimentos de produção, beneficiamento e comercialização de modo a garantir sua autonomia e sustento. Um metaverso será usado como ferramenta de trabalho e de divulgação de boas práticas.

Understanding the pressing need for humans to limit their consumption to more supportable levels, this study investigated how one social studies teacher taught the social issues associated with a sustainable food supply. This article discusses what the teacher’s curricular, pedagogical, and assessment strategies were in engaging students with dialogical questions about more sustainable consumption. In addition, it offers insights for how such instructional techniques might inform a more personally- responsive approach to teaching about sustainability education.

This article attempts a broad characterization of environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD), and includes a short overview of the history of the field, key debates, the main approaches to ESD and EE, and a look toward the future. However, such a brief account should not be considered to be fully comprehensive, and can only be considered to provide a broad overview of the field from the authors’ perspectives.

Loss, impermanence, and death are facts of life difficult to face squarely. Our own mortality and that of loved ones feels painful and threatening, the mortality of the biosphere unthinkable. Consequently, we do our best to dodge these thoughts, and the current globalizing culture supports and colludes in our evasiveness. Even environmental educators tend to foreground 'sustainability' whilst sidelining the reality of decline, decay, and loss. And yet, human life and ecological health require experiencing 'unsustainability' too, and a pedagogy for life requires a pedagogy of death. In this paper we explore experiences of loss and dying in both human relationships and the natural world through four different types of death affording situations, the cemetery, caring-unto-death, sudden death, and personal mortality. We trace the confluence of death in nature and human life, and consider some pedagogical affordance within and between these experiences as an invitation to foster an honest relationship with the mortality of self, others, and nature. We end by suggesting art as an ally in this reconnaissance, which can scaffold teaching and learning and support us to courageously accept both the beauty and the ugliness that death delivers to life.

Depuis le rapport Brundtland de 1987, le développement durable s’est inscrit, non sans difficultés qui persistent encore, à l’ordre du jour international. Cherchant à intégrer la protection de l’environnement avec l’efficacité économique et les préoccupations sociales, le développement durable fut défini dans ce rapport comme « un mode de développement qui répond aux besoins des générations présentes sans compromettre la capacité des générations futures de répondre aux leurs ». Le souci des générations futures interpelle la justice intergénérationnelle que nous approfondirons plus bas. Nous présenterons d’abord succinctement un cadre conceptuel situant le débat théorique autour de cette notion, puis nous considérerons sa mise en application dans la pratique avant de conclure par quelques pistes de réflexions pour le futur.

Sustainability issues, given their potential scale of impact and urgency, have captured the imagination of both corporations and academic institutions everywhere. This paper examines how such problems and their potential solutions have been incorporated into higher education, particularly business school education in India. With over 3,600 business schools in the public and private sector, business education in India has proliferated. However, students by and large still remain unexposed to sustainability and disaster management concepts in their curriculum.  The underlying factors for this include, lack of institutional capacity, issues related to faculty motivation and incentives, lack of recruiter interest and limited availability to high quality resource material.  Further, while several schools in India focus on sectors relevant to sustainability, inter-organizational linkages have not developed and business school generally operate independently.  This paper examines the way forward to deeply integrate sustainability principles into the core curriculum of business schools. Measures suggested include creating communities of practice among academia and industry, building a resource base of teaching materials for easy access by faculty, and several measures to strengthen institutional capacity.

Synonyms SE Definition/description The concept of sustainable education is based on the terms sustainability and education. The term 'sustainability' is derived from the Latin sustinere and the term 'education' from the Latin word educatio. The former is a model of thinking in which the quality of life is improved through balancing the environment, society and the economy (Jeronen 2013). The latter refers to an activity or process for acquiring or sharing knowledge or skills, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and intellectually preparing oneself or others for life (Thesaurus 2021). Many of today's challenges require a veritable shift in thought and behavior to support sustainable living. According to Stephen Sterling (2008), the necessary cultural change can be achieved through sustainable education (SE). He defines the concept as: "a change of educational culture, one which develops and embodies the theory and practice of sustainability in a way which is critically aware. It is therefore a transformative paradigm which values, sustains and realises human potential in relation to the need to attain and sustain social, economic and ecological well being, recognising that they must be part of the same dynamic." (Sterling 2001, p. 22.) The concept of SE thus refers to finding sustainable solutions to environmental, social and economic problems through education (Prabakaran 2020). It is a concept that challenges both formal and non-formal educational sectors to actively participate in the creation of economic, social and environmental programs that improve quality of life, increase empowerment and respect interdependence (Abduganiev and Abdurakhmanov 2020).

Examining transformative pedagogical developments which make use of discomfort and criticality, including the suggestion of 'brave spaces', this paper asks how Higher Education might make use of challenge, uncertainty, risk and discomfort in teaching and learning about sustainability. Beginning with an overview of discomfort and uncertainty in relation to the field of sustainability education and transformative learning, the paper moves on to consider the potential for developing a relational education which draws inspiration from the natural (non-human) world aligned with the approaches of ecotherapy. In the second section, the paper discusses the opportunities and assertions arising for Higher Education practice including: making use of 'brave spaces'; encouraging 'challenge by choice'; developing divergent and pluralistic thinking; cultivating a connection in natural environments and confronting the 'student satisfaction' agenda in Higher Education in the UK. Finally, the paper concludes with recognition of some of the ethical and institutional barriers to an implementation of discomfort, 'brave spaces' and relational pedagogies. This paper is intended as a provocation for practitioners and aims to signpost the opportunities for developing a more responsive, critical and daring approach to sustainability education.

Abstract: This article relates common ways of conceptualising action research as “intervention”, “collaboration”, “interactive research”, “applied research”, and “practitioner research” to a number of different ways of knowing extracted from the works of Aristotle. The purpose is not to disavow any of these practices but to expand the philosophical, methodological, and theoretical horizon to contain the Aristotelian concept of praxis. It is claimed that praxis knowing needs to be comprehended in order to realize the full, radical potential in action research providing real “added value” in relation to more conventional social research approaches. Praxis knowing radically challenges the divisions of labour between knower-researchers and the known-researched. Thereby it also challenges both the epistemologies and institutionalisations dominating both conventional research and conventional ways of conceptualising action research.

Building on the Millennium Development Goals, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG) were established. Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace the SDGs, given escalating sustainability challenges, this article questions whether ESDG is desirable as “education for the future”. Many challenges outlined by the SDGs are supposed to be solved by “inclusive” or “sustainable” economic growth, assuming that economic growth can be conveniently decoupled from resource consumption. Yet, the current hegemony of the sustainability-through-growth paradigm has actually increased inequalities and pressure on natural resources, exacerbating biodiversity loss, climate change and resulting social tensions. With unreflective support for growth, far from challenging the status quo, the SDGs and consequently, the ESDGs, condone continuing environmental exploitation, depriving millions of species of their right to flourish, and impoverishing future generations. This article creates greater awareness of the paradoxes of sustainable development and encourages teaching for sustainability through various examples of alternative education that emphasizes planetary ethic and degrowth. The alternatives include Indigenous learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, education for steady-state and circular economy, empowerment and liberation.

"WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT GREENING THE ACADEMY

The necessity of linking together single issue social justice pursuits cannot be overstated, nor can the crucial role higher education must play in helping to solve international social justice dilemmas. Greening of the Academy provides a much-needed analysis focusing on the importance of these issues as a means to progress global peace and justice issues. A must read for anyone seriously interested in making a difference in the world.
- Craig Rosebraugh, Author of Burning Rage of a Dying Planet

Many of the most important forces for social change in human history have taken root in our universities, and today the academy is a crucial site where scholars are working to integrate ecological sustainability and social justice. Greening the Academy is a clarion call for deep green approaches to thinking, teaching, research, and action that can make a dramatic and positive difference for the future of all species.
- Dr. David Naguib Pellow,
Author of Garbage Wars:
The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago

Critical, crucial, and challenging, this book initiates a dialogue essential to the survival of our planet and all the species on it, including our own. Ignored for far too long by leaders of the major social institutions around the world, this book poses the question of whether the academy will belatedly tackle the urgent policies and actions necessary to ameliorate the ecological destruction wrought by predatory capitalism. University Centers for Teaching and Learning should use this book to generate meaningful discussions of curriculum transformation wherever possible.
- Dr. Julie Andrzejewski,
Co-Director, Social Responsibility Masters Program,
St. Cloud State University

Greening the Academy breaks through barriers that continue to enervate higher education’s contribution to environmental education and ecological justice. By connecting radical “cognitive praxis” and authentic Indigenous perspectives to a variety of relevant topics, it offers educators motivation and maps for helping us all regain our lost balance before it is too late.
- Four Arrows,
Editor of Unlearning the Language of Conquest:
Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America

This is an important and urgent book that represents a landmark for higher education. It is a book that must be heeded, and, more importantly acted upon.
- Dr. Peter McLaren,
Author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution

Higher education plays an increasingly important role globally in determining responses to human-induced environmental change. Greening the Academy shows us that it is crucial that educational policy, curriculum, institutional practice, and scholarly research go beyond greenwashing business as usual and instead engage critically with environmental issues. The book highlights how environmental concerns are not only the purview of the sciences but are centrally a result of cultural and economic practices and priorities, and thus must be engaged interdisciplinarily and in relation to community and place. To change the path we have set for the planet, it will take collaboration and persistence; this book offers hope in moving forward.
- Dr. Marcia McKenzie,
Editor of Fields of Green: Restorying Culture, Environment, and Education




TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Bill McKibben

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Introduction
Richard Kahn, Anthony J. Nocella II, and Samuel Fassbinder

1. Greening Education
Samuel Fassbinder

2. Greening Criminology
Piers Beirne and Nigel South

3. Greening Sociology
Kishi Animashaun Ducre

4. Greening Political Science
Timothy Luke

5. Greening Philosophy
Steven Best

6. Greening Economics
Miriam Kennet and Michele Gale D'Oliveira

7. Greening Geography
Donna Houston

8. Greening History
Eva Swidler

9. Greening Anthropology
Brian McKenna

10. Greening Communication
Tema Milstein

11. Greening Literature
Corey Lewis

12. Greening Dis-Ability
Anthony J. Nocella II

13. Greening Feminism
Greta Gaard

Afterword: Can Higher Education Take Climate Change as Seriously as the CIA and the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London?
David A. Greenwood"

"Higher education is uniquely placed to play a leading role in the attainment of sustainable development. This catalyst potential needs grounding, however, in a context where universities and colleges are currently seen as contributing to the sustainability crisis. Sustainability challenges the current paradigms, structures as well as predominant practices in higher
education: this is a consistent message found throughout the literature. Universities and colleges are
facing this reality as they seek to meaningfully contribute to sustainability. The paper argues that this requires going beyond the integration of key ideas in existing curriculum; the commissioning of a new sustainable building or supporting the sustainability action projects which often occur in the fringes of the institution. Instead, the sustainability journey engages universities and colleges in a quest for interdisciplinarity, participatory pedagogies, ‘real world ‘ research and the opening of institutional boundaries so that the notion of sustainable communities is extended beyond university and college walls. The paper proposes that a systemic or connected view of sustainability across institutions is required to transform the educational experience of students and lead social change for
sustainability. Through mapping the international declarations and frameworks for higher education, this paper confirms the, in principle, commitment of universities and colleges to transform the higher education experience towards sustainability. The paper then contrasts these public intentions with a review of
global and regional progress in the areas of leadership and strategy; modeling practice; education and learning; partnerships and outreach for sustainability in higher education. It suggests that
achievements have been random and mostly disconnected from the core business of higher education. The paper concludes that if the higher education sector is to be transformative, it needs
to transform itself. This will be a lengthy and ambitious process which will require strong leadership."

We live in a designed world. STEAM by Design presents a transdisciplinary approach to learning that challenges young minds with the task of making a better world. Learning today, like life, is dynamic, connected and engaging. STEAM (Science, Technology, Environment, Engineering, Art, and Math) teaching and learning integrates information in place-based projects accessing everyday technology of virtual field trips, digital interactives, apps, and  contemporary art, science and design practices. STEAM by Design develops designing minds. Designing minds work across STEAM fields developing social, cultural, technological,  environmental  and  economical  responses  to existing and future conditions. Design adds Art and the environment to the STEM equation to contribute site specific, culturally connected, contributions to creative economies.  Documented  case  studies  at  the  elementary, middle and high school level demonstrate the ease of delivering STEAM by Design opportunities and reveal the inherent creativity of students if encouraged. Design cultivates new knowledge, skills and values derived from becoming  aware,  developing  understanding,  and  testing ideas through making. Designing place-based projects, K- 16 students acquire STEAM aptitude and better understand the use of STEM fields in solving contemporary problems. Access to everyday technologies cultivate ways to create,
 

communicate and collaborate. STEAM by Design is supported by the ELearning Designopedia, NEXT.cc, aligned with newly released NEXT Generation Science Standards, North American Association for Environmental Education Standards and Art and Design Standards. STEAM by Design positions designing as world pedagogy that connects students as citizen activists in the communities in which they live and learn.

Adventure is a relic of imperialism and the European romanticization of place. It has evolved from quests for domination of place and people (colonialism), to spiritual or consumeristic escape from the modern world, to an attempt to return or reconnect to nature. This paradigm implies that if humans must reconnect to nature, there is an inherent disconnect or a separation. This reconnection is rooted in romantic notions and Cartesian duality of man and nature. However, approaches towards adventure and tourism apart from such dominant Western mountain traditions focus on the critical and contextually based aspects of adventure experiences. These approaches, informed by indigenous meanings of place, traditional ecological knowledge, and ecofeminism, decenter human experience. Likewise, a feminist new materialist approach towards understanding place and materiality also allows for an awareness of entanglements and intra-active relationships of human and more-than-human to emerge, as did this research.
This dissertation examined place in the context of adventure trekking tourism in the upper Solukhumbu District, Nepal through a walking ethnography of the trails in and around Mount Everest base camp. This research was based on the following questions: 1. How can the future of development of Nepali Himalayan adventure tourism industry move forward ethically and with reciprocity towards the interconnectivity of mountains and people; 2. How can the adventure tourism industry consider the complexities of influence on a place—from both a direct impact and that of greater anthropogenic impacts? This research was grounded in the background and orientations of Everest tourism, which developed within discourse and materiality of Khumbu, shifting with local identities and meanings of place. Tourism in this context mangles in the edges of local and global cultures looming within immanent threats of the Anthropocene. Discourse composed and idealized from outside the mountain boundaries contributes to motivations for traveling to the Khumbu and perceptions of this place, in turn shaping the expectations of the tourist. In these contact zones mountains are sacred, a business venture, a personal challenge, place of revelation and spirituality, imperial conquest, neocolonial stomping ground, to scientific object of study. Within these complexities, this dissertation examined the concept of place and how meaning and agency develop in relation to adventure tourism experiences in Khumbu and the Anthropocene. A reciprocity develops in which human amongst more-than-human becomes embedded and inseparable. Shifting an anthropocentric gaze that privileges and sets matter apart as isolated and constrained by boundaries determined by humans, demonstrated the vibrant agential reality of more-than-human intimacies such as forgotten landscapes, rocks, dirt, glaciers, and altitude. Nature is not a passive object upon which humans descend, but rather an entangled subjectivity. This awareness allows for a rethinking of human enactments of Anthropocene and complicit behaviors of this epoch, reframing approaches to adventure. The conclusions of this research found that mountains—more-than-human—have agency and meaning and are not passive or in the background of human experience. This applies to a practical application of the research through a praxis tool for new materialist research and the adventure industry, in turn decentering the human/anthropocentrism and identified practices of tourism that are both sustainable and more inclusive of the entanglements of people and place.
Keywords: adventure tourism, Nepal, new materialism, walking ethnography, Khumbu, Anthropocene

Understanding and learning geographic knowledge and applying it to sustainable development (SD) depends not only on the knowledge itself, but also on how it is taught and studied. The teaching and learning methods for promoting sustainability in geography have not been thoroughly studied. This qualitative study examined articles on geography teaching and SD. The material was selected using keywords related to geography education. The study describes 17 articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2008 to 2018. The focus group varied from primary to higher education. The proportion of teaching and learning methods were determined. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The foci of the analyses were the teaching and learning methods, topics, goals, and levels of thinking skills. Additionally, features of the teaching methods used in geography education, including outdoor education, to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) were investigated. Different teaching methods used together and interactive learning were the most often preferred. Group work and teachers' presentations were mentioned in 12 articles, and inquiry-based learning and argumentation in half of the articles. The most often written expressions promoting SD in geography education concerned environmental sustainability (42%), followed by social (25%), economic (19%), and cultural sustainability (14%). The most emphasized features of the current teaching methods were active participation, thinking skills, animation, evaluation, dialog, demonstrations, and information and communication technology skills. The whole school approach and forward-looking perspective in geography should be implemented in school education to reach the SDGs and to support SD.