Embedding sustainability in practice

Reflection prompts, tips for practice, introductory resources, and case studies.


Course Design

Head, heart, hands: engaging students cognitively, socio-emotionally and behaviourally is key to sustainability learning, and can lead to powerful transformative outcomes. This type of learning is often referred to as taking a 'head, heart, hand' approach, or 'knowing, acting, being' (Barnett and Coate, 2005). Examples of learning activities to support this type of teaching are included below.

Constructivism: As Freire (1970) argues, students should not be viewed as 'empty vessels' who require ‘filling’ with knowledge as per the 'banking' model of education, but as active agents of change who can help to re-shape collective futures. In this respect, there are many overlaps with experiential learning.

Connectedness with nature: bringing nature into the curriculum as part of course design can open up space for learning to be taken outside, and for a deeper consideration of indigenous worldviews which look beyond the nature/culture divide and align with decolonial practices.

Learning activities

Building student-centered, active learning approaches into teaching engages students socio-emotionally and behaviourally, as well as cognitively. The below list provides a starting point for thinking about teaching activities linked to sustainability and comes from a paper by Ahmad et al (2023) exploring methods for building Education for Sustainable Development into teaching.

Examples include: 

  • Role play;
  • Object-based learning;
  • Group work;
  • Debates;
  • Digital storytelling;
  • Reflective accounts;
  • Case studies;
  • Problem-based learning.

Learning for Sustainability Research into Action Briefings: Learning for Sustainability – effective pedagogies (4 pages): This briefing note on effective pedagogies for learning for sustainability also includes a useful list of activities that can be built into teaching practice. The activities include:

  • Using expressive arts to explore thoughts and ideas;
  • Taking action to address ‘real life’ issues in practical ways based on what has been learned;
  • Organising special events, for example a conference or fashion show.

Assessment

Reflection is one of the most powerful ways of exploring the impact that course activities and other forms of assessment (e.g. groupwork) have had on students. For example, a Learning Outcome could focus on students' ability to develop skills in critical reflection, with a critical reflection essay, blog or video as part of the assessment. This section on reflection has more information.


The following short videos introduce key concepts around sustainability and environmental justice:

  • What is education for sustainable development? (4 mins): A short explainer of Advance HE and Quality Assurance Agency’s Education for sustainable development guidance document.
  • Exploring climate change impacts (3 mins): A United Nations video with Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres.
  • Learning in the outdoors (6 mins): This short film captures the student voice at Edinburgh University on what learning in the outdoors means to them.
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer (2 mins): 'Braiding Sweetgrass' author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, talks about her work bringing together western and indigenous knowledge.
  • 'Environmental justice' (5 mins): A short video on Environmental Justice from the 'Father' of Environmental Justice, Dr Robert Bullard.

Case Studies in Sustainable Development Course

Sustainability is unsurprisingly embedded in the content of this course, but this course also exemplifies how course design can support sustainability. Early in the course, students partake in living lab consultancy style projects with the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability in groups of 3-4 for 8 weeks. By the end they are graded on the presentation of their research as recommendations for the department to take forward. This use of inquiry-based learning and experiential pedagogy empowers students by giving them the opportunity to make meaningful change through their studies and develops skills for sustainable development such as collaboration, future thinking, and problem solving. Later in the course students go on a field trip to the Isle of Eigg to see how a society can function sustainably. This use of place-based pedagogy and outdoor learning generates value for nature and develops skills such as self-awareness, critical thinking and normative thinking. Overall, this course embodies a learn by doing approach that prepares students for the real world and allows them to build values that support sustainability.

“I remember Eigg a lot better than I remember the lectures, to be honest, because I can go back to remembering, say, the smell of sea water mixing with like manure, and it brings me back there. Or, I can remember talking to somebody who had a really strong Scottish burr sitting in this new wooden community centre and that takes me back to Eigg. With case studies [lectures], I don't really have any like sensations to pull me back to that knowledge.”- 2023 Student

Biology 1B: Life

This case study exemplifies how non-sustainability focused courses can embed themes of sustainability in existing course content. This compulsory first year course challenges students to come up with biological solutions to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs) creatively in groups. Students are primarily assessed on their application of biological knowledge but around 15% of their grade is how relevant their solution is to the SDG they are assigned. This shows how sustainability can be used to contextualize theoretical learning without minimizing students’ disciplinary expertise. The decision to meaningfully measure sustainability understanding in assessment criteria exemplifies the value of this kind of knowledge and hopefully encourages students to act sustainably beyond their studies as well.


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