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    Learning for Sustainability
    Learning for Sustainability
    Learning for Sustainability
    Ebook179 pages1 hour

    Learning for Sustainability

    By Sarah Speight

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    About this ebook

    This module is designed both to stand alone, but also to compliment a range of other open educational resources that are provided by the University of Nottingham in U-Now. Like these, this module is also available to University of Nottingham students as part of the Nottingham Advantage Award. We have been able to develop these online resources with the support of JISC, the UK’s expert organisation for digital and information technologies.

    The aim of this module is to provide students with an overview of current work and debates on the subject of Sustainability. Sustainability is a complex term that can mean different things to different people depending upon their cultural and subject backgrounds, and the context within which they live and work.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Nottingham
    Release dateMar 6, 2013
    Learning for Sustainability

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      Book preview

      Learning for Sustainability - Sarah Speight

      What you make of Sustainability depends upon you, your background, your character, the subjects that you learn or teach. For me, sustainability is as much about pedagogy as it is about subject. I’m an academic working in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham. I teach on a BA Humanities and an MA in International Higher Education as well as supervising research students working in the areas of sustainability, employability and internationalisation. My disciplinary background is in history and archaeology. I am interested in sustainability from many angles, but particularly from the angle of teaching and learning. It is quite straightforward to incorporate sustainability into my teaching in terms of content. I can explore the historic relationships between people and each other, people and the environment including the origins of agriculture in ancient Mesopotamia, the impact of resource imbalances upon human social development (e.g. slavery), and the effects of climate change (e.g. the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ of the medieval period). But I can also think about the learning approaches and technologies that I use to ensure that the work my students and I undertake together has a lasting benefit. For example, my first year undergraduates are often asked to produce a film as one of their first assignments. They choose an archaeological artefact or historic document or building and then script and record a short film explaining its significance for its own time, but also its relevance to modern culture. The idea is that the film allows them to develop their research, team-working and communication skills but that it is also results in an output that can become a resource for others. The ‘sustainability’ aspect is in the ‘double’ or even ‘triple’ duty being done by the form of assessment (assessment of today’s knowledge and understanding in a form that supports students' personal development as lifelong learners and that also supports the learning of others).

      I sum up what Sustainability means to me in a 5-minute film available here:

      http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/teaching/teaching/esd/sustainability.aspx

      Higher Education globally has a major role to play in promoting the values of sustainability because it has such an influence on the next generation of workers and leaders. The global population of students are also themselves consumers, users and potential change agents. Several renowned writers on sustainability have castigated universities for reinforcing world problems by producing graduates who cannot see different perspectives and solutions to today’s pressing issues:

      "The volume of education has increased and continues to increase, yet so do pollution, exhaustion of resources, and the dangers of ecological catastrophe. If still more education is to save us, it would have to be education of a different kind: an education that takes us into the depth of things." (Schumacher, E.F. 1997 ‘This I believe’ and other essays. Dartington: Green Books)

      "Those who contribute to exploiting poor communities and the earth’s ecosystems are those who have BAs, MBAs, MSc’s and PhDs and not the ‘ignorant’ poor from the South". (Orr, D. 2004 ‘Earth in Mind – on education, environment and the human prospect’. Washington: Island Press)

      "The world’s middle classes shatter the planet with their aspirations and consumer decisions; those in power, with responsibility for current unsustainable systems, have enjoyed the ‘best’ education". (Jucker, R. 2011, ‘ESD between Systemic Change and Bureaucratic Obfuscation’, Journal of Education for Sustainable Development Vol. 5 No.1, pp.39-60).

      The barriers that are preventing real progress towards sustainability in higher education come down to the attitudes of staff and students. Staff buy-in and expertise to teach about and for sustainability and with sustainable pedagogies is a huge issue. If staff do not subscribe, it is difficult to see how students can. But staff need to get beyond a fear that sustainability is a ‘new religion’ not open to questioning and debate and one that may be forced into the curriculum with a resulting diminishing of academic freedom and control. Sustainability is not a subject with a fixed curriculum covering set views on climate change, global warming, pollution or deforestation. It is a set of values and pedagogies that aim to equip students to grapple with real-world problems in relation to whatever disciplines(s) they are studying and to be able to make informed decisions about their own behaviours and impacts (including contributing to change).

      Related Modules

      This module is designed both to stand alone, but also to compliment a range of other open educational resources that are provided by the University of Nottingham in U-Now. Like these, this module is also available to University of Nottingham students as part of the Nottingham Advantage Award. We have been able to develop these online resources with the support of JISC, the UK’s expert organisation for digital and information technologies.

      The other Nottingham Advantage Award modules that are available in U-Now include:

      Sustainability: the business perspective

      http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/resource.aspx?hid=09c8fc5c-4e06-e1a5-8677-9a4828cddc1b#

      Sustainability in the arts and humanities

      http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/resource.aspx?hid=dcc40763-7e16-1d60-6492-5682fabf5d77

      Sustainability and engineering

      http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/resource.aspx?hid=1c4d7433-74db-9779-b605-7681374bc79a

      Sustainability: the geography perspective

      http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/resource.aspx?hid=6b51401f-d00f-c72b-fad6-319393a548ca

      Skills for Employability

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/a7d3e544-bddb-9655-d8a5-a09b5dae5981/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      Peer Mentoring

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/4e319298-6d32-ce36-766f-05da70ddce06/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      Global Citizenship

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/0417ca8b-5d66-58ee-e1bd-dfa58351635c/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      Placements and Internships

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/9c6f4e9b-19ac-b385-c627-77a57832e1c3/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      Career Planning Skills

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/440f5c31-2963-bba6-be37-deb400a9e5af/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      International Peer Mentoring

      http://equella.nottingham.ac.uk/uon/items/3260342c-6044-d46c-5e07-02ed9d2aa1fd/1/ViewIMS.jsp

      Learning Outcomes and Assessment

      The aim of this module is to provide students with an overview of current work and debates on the subject of Sustainability. Sustainability is a complex term that can mean different things to different people depending upon their cultural and subject backgrounds, and the context within which they live and work.

      By the end of the module, you should be able to:

      Knowledge and Understanding

      * Recognise and understand the diverse ways in which the term Sustainability is used

      * Describe how the principles of Sustainability can be applied to your own life and your own context

      Intellectual Skills

      * Discuss the relevance of Sustainability to a range of different academic disciplines

      * Recognise and discuss some of the evidence for the growing importance of Sustainability in government policy, business strategy and employment.

      * Suggest different learning and teaching strategies to develop awareness oparenessnding pf Sustainabilityto developity can be applied to your own life and yourown context e greater knowledge of how impf Sustainability in yourself and others

      Transferable Skills

      * Increase your ability to manage your own learning by successful completion of a self-directed online module

      * Use a range of online and visual learning media with confidence

      * Apply skills of critical analysis and research effectively

      Assessment

      This module is available to University of Nottingham registered students as part of the Nottingham Advantage Award. Successful completion of the module

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