This paper led by ELS-WUR PhD-candidate Marlies van der Wee – Bedeker was published earlier this Fall. The paper is the first peer reviewed article based on her research that is grounded in the City of Rotterdam using her home institute Hogeschool Rotterdam as a base. Below a summary of the main fiindings. The full paper can be found here!
We are pleased to share with you the publication of our new book, Education and Learning for Sustainable Futures: 50 years of learning and environmental change. This book explores fundamental questions about how the role of education has evolved over the decades since the pivotal 1972 Stockholm Conference, which brought environmental learning to the forefront of global awareness.
Co-authors, Daniella Tilbury and Thomas Macintyre and myself, have attempted to find some answers by tracking through the decades (1970-2020) the development of narratives, thinking, and practice of learning and education in support of the environment and sustainability. What is clear is that the profile and presence of learning and education for the environment has been elevated in today’s policy discourses and communities of practice. Yet, our analysis identified some clear differences in the way education and learning for the environment has been approached over time.
In our new book, we trace these changes over the decades while looking ahead to the challenges and opportunities of the future. A key wildcard in this journey is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which holds immense potential to bridge digital and green agendas, enabling smarter environmental management and driving innovation toward a sustainable future. However, we also address critical concerns: data privacy breaches, outsourcing human thinking to profit-driven algorithms, exacerbation of inequalities, and the environmental footprint of AI infrastructure.
This book provides a light way into the history, developments and prospects of the field of Environmental and Sustainability Education.
Full reference:
Macintyre, T., Tilbury, D., & Wals, A. (2024). Education and Learning for Sustainable Futures: 50 Years of Learning for Environment and Change (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003467007
Our thanks also go to Stakeholder Forum and to @JanGustav for his leadership role in the Stockholm+50 reflective dialogues, and to UNEP/ the Swedish Government for spurring us on to track the historical development of education and learning for the environment. We are also grateful to @Routledge for taking an interest in publishing the text.
On Friday November 1st one of my Norwegian PhD Candidates successfully defended her dissertation. Over the past few years I have been working with colleagues both at Wageningen University and at the Norwegian Life Sciences University (NMBU) on researching the potential merits of so-called Whole School and/or Whole Institution Approaches (WSA/WIA) to sustainability. At NMBU there are currently four PhD-candidates doing research related to this, Ane Eir Thorsdottir is or rather, was one of them. Her work focusses on one aspect of the WSA which is critically important: students participation. In addition to myself, Prof Astrid Sinnes of NMBU and Dr. Daniel Olsson of Karlstad University in Sweden were her supervisors. Jan Cincera and Elin Saether (Olso Univerity) were her ‘ opponents’ .She has published three articles that are central in the dissertation: two in Environmental Education Research and one in Global Environmental Research.
Elin Seather (left) having a dialogue with Ane (right) during the defence – posing an interesting question about autonomy and self-determination as pedagogical principles in a world that requires a decentering of ‘ self’ and opening up for ‘ other’ as well.
Led by Daniel Couceiro, I was priviledged to join a group of reflective practitioners and colleague Valentina Tassone on the meaning of stewardship in a troubled highly biodiverse region Here you have the main premise of the paper but please go to the full paper for a more in-depth encounter with the work.
Nature degradation is rooted in the disruption of the human-land connection. Its restoration requires the regeneration of environmental stewardship as a way to live within environmental limits, especially for younger generations. In this study we used the implementation of a year-round, non-formal environmental education program during COVID-19 times to explore environmental stewardship in adolescents between 14- and 18-years old from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Using a qualitative methodology, we mapped expressions of environmental stewardship among local youth. We found several barriers that can be challenged and levers that can be nurtured through inclusive, place-based and collaborative environmental education strategies to foster youth’s environmental stewardship in Colombian’s high-biodiverse regions.
Full citation and link to open access paper:
Daniel Couceiro, Ivona Radoslavova Hristova, Valentina Tassone, Arjen Wals & Camila Gómez (2023) Exploring environmental stewardship and youth engagement in biodiversity among youth from a high-biodiverse region in Colombia, The Journal of Environmental Education, DOI: 10.1080/00958964.2023.2238649
Transformative learning 