Sustainability education examines the confluence between society, environment, and economy. Yet, an overemphasis on economy has historically trumped attention to the other sphere’s needs. Such an imbalance, editors David Selby and Fumiyo Kagawa argue, calls for a radical reconceptualization of sustainability education. In their book, Sustainability Education Frontiers: Critical Transformative Voices from the Borderlands of Sustainability Education, they invite authors from ten different countries to discuss how sustainability education can be transformed to meet the needs of a diverse and interconnected world.
Continue ReadingIn this inspiring essay, Capra and Stone take us beyond the trite use of the word “sustainability” to an operational way of applying it in the educational setting. They outline four universal principles that should guide sustainability education, each with a profound implication for how learning occurs. They then show how the principles can be applied through a “curriculum that is anywhere learning occurs,” including lunchtime in the cafeteria and the design of the school campus. Their book Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability expounds on the principles and learning-anywhere ideas laid out in brief here.