Thinking critically about Sustainable Development
“Sustainable development, if it is going to happen, is going to be a learning process. It certainly won’t be about ‘rolling out’ a set of pre-determined behaviours.”
Bill Scott’s work with Paul Vare describes two complementary approaches to education for sustainable development: ESD1 and ESD2.
ESD1 is about promoting / facilitating changes in what we do.
It involves promoting informed, skilled behaviours and ways of thinking, where the need for this is clearly identified and agreed.
ESD2 is about enabling / realising sustainable living.
It involves building learners’ capacity:
The Tide~ challenge has responded to these ideas with:
Fresh thinking focusing on the second of these approaches;
Practical projects developing ‘learning journeys’;
Two papers which synthesise core ideas, and which have implications for future education policy.
For more on the projects, click here
For a PDF of the discussion paper, click here
For a copy of Bill Scott’s paper arising from this work, Schools, but not as we know them?
For more on the key ideas, see Bill Scott and Paul Vare’s paper Education for sustainable development: two sides and an edge
The Bill Scott Challenge was launched at a conference in November 2007, followed by the presentation of a linked paper on Climate change ~ the educational challenges, which has served as a focus for a wide range of teacher group activity.
In December 2008 we built on this work with a seminar, marking the 10th anniversary of the Holland Report on sustainable development education and the debates it generated, and serving as a focus for further activity:
For a report from the November 2007 conference, click here
For the paper Climate change ~ the educational challenge, click here
For a report on the Holland Report Seminar, click here
For Challenge Steering Group details, click here
For a description of the work of the nine projects, click here
For details of the June 2009 conference, click here
In addition to Bill and Paul's work on ESD1 and ESD2, we have invited all those involved in this initiative to consider how the seven key concepts in the 1998 Holland Report might be used to enhance quality learning relating to global sustainable development.
For an overview of the key concepts, click here
For a full copy of the 1998 Holland Report, click here
Schools, but not as we know them?
From little seeds ... Thinking about Africa, thinking about farming
Less is more? - consumerism and quality of life
Organisations supporting sustainable schools
Growing ideas ~ some food for thought [includes an earlier challenge from Bill Scott about how we measure the success of educational work on sustainable development].