Another Timely Course in Times of COVID-19 – Climate Action: Scaling Up Your Impact

Posted on 30/03/2020 by arjenwals

CornellCourse

Cornell University’s Civic Ecology Lab is starting a new online course on Climate Action during a time where the topic is more urgent then ever but also, when many people, the forunate ones, are locked-down into there home environment with access to technology and lots of time on their hands. Here is the basic info. You can also go straight to their website!

Overview. Many of us want to do something about climate change, but individual actions can feel inadequate in the face of the looming crisis. In the Network Climate Action: Scaling up your Impact online course, you will learn what the latest research says about how to scale up your individual actions through your social networks. You will choose a greenhouse gas mitigation action you take yourself and apply social influence research to persuade your family, friends, social media followers, or other social network to also take that action. You will be part of a unique online community that is applying innovative, exciting, and evidence-based approaches to fight climate change!

Participants. Environment, climate, and education professionals, volunteers, university students, or other climate concerned citizen from any country. Discussions will be in English. This is NOT a course about climate science, but rather about how you can take effective action to help address the climate crisis.

Cost. $60 fee. Most participants pay this fee.

Options available to pay a higher fee ($120) to sponsor another student, or pay a lower or no fee if you are unable to pay or live in countries without internationally accepted payment systems (e.g., Afghanistan, Iran).

Educational approach. The course is based on two principles: (1) Learning is social: participants learn by discussing ideas and sharing resources; (2) Learning should lead to action: participants will apply course content to implementing a climate action of their choice and by persuading one of their social networks to take that action alongside them.

Technology. Edge edX for readings, pre-recorded lectures, and discussion questions (asynchronous). We will also use Facebook and WhatsApp for optional informal discussions and sharing. We will host one webinar each week (Thursdays 8am NY time) and one “office hours” webinar for participants to ask questions each week (Wednesdays 8am NY time). Webinars will be recorded if participants are unable to attend in person.

Certificates. Participants who complete the course are awarded a Cornell University certificate (PDF). Weekly assignments include lectures, readings, and discussion questions. Participants are required to participate in a minimum of one course webinar in person or by watching the recorded webinar. Required course project is a one-page report on the climate action you took with your network.

Learning outcomes. Participants will:

Describe the feasibility and effectiveness of actions to mitigate greenhouse gases across different countries and contexts.
Implement an action to reduce greenhouse gases themselves and among their social network.
Critically reflect on the results of their network climate action and write a one-page report of their action and reflections.
Participate actively in a global online community of climate-concerned citizens.

Topics. Topics. Week 1: Climate Solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from www.drawdown.org. Week 2: Social Networks and spread of climate behaviors; Week 3: Social Mobilization; Week 4: Social Norms; Week 5: Social Marketing and Social Media.

Work load. 5 weeks (4-5 hours of work per week). Throughout the course, you will be working on your network climate action. During the last week, you will complete and submit a final report on your project to persuade one of your social networks to take a climate action.

Dates. April 7 – May 12, 2020. Assignments must be completed no later than May 19, 2020.

Instructors. An experienced and dynamic team from Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab: Marianne Krasny (Professor), Alex Kudryavtsev (Research Associate), Yue Li (Research Associate), Kim Snyder (Course Administrator), Melanie Quinones Santiago (Spanish language assistant), Wanying Wu (Chinese language assistant), plus 10 Chinese language teaching assistants.

Webinar Schedule. We provide two weekly webinars. You can watch them live or the recorded version.

Wednesdays, 8am NY time, “Office Hours” question/answer with instructor Marianne Krasny

8, 15, 22, and 29 April, 6 May

Thursdays, 8am NY time, Plant-rich Diet: Persuading family and friends (This webinar series also open to the public

26 March: Where’s the beet? How diet is a climate game changer; Jennifer Wilkins, Syracuse University

2 April: Harnessing Peer Pressure to Parry the Climate Threat; Robert H Frank, Cornell University

9 April: Menus of Change: Bringing the principles of health and wellness to life; Brendan Walsh,

Culinary Institute of America

16 April: Sustainable Diets and the EAT Lancet Report; Elizabeth Fox, Cornell University

23 April: Cornell Dining: Menus of Change principles reflected in our culinary program;

Lisa Zehr and Michelle Nardi, Cornell University

30 April: How Climate Behaviors Spread in Networks; Damon Centola, University of Pennsylvania

7 May: “Sustainable Tapas” Project: Complex behaviors and social mobilization approaches to climate action;

Fátima Delgado, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

New: The interplay between social learning and adaptive capacity in climate change adaptation

Posted on 08/06/2017 by arjenwals

Pics source: www.knowledgebank.irri.org

One of my PhD students, Le Thi Hong Phuong from Vietnam, just had her review article (with me and Robbert Biesbroek of Wageningen UR as humble co-authors) published in NJAS . In the paper she maintains that successful implementation climate change adaptation depends to a large extent on the capabilities of individuals, organizations, and communities to create and mobilize the adaptive capacity (AC) of their socio-ecological system. In the paper, creating and mobilizing AC is seens as a continuous process that requires social learning (SL). Although rich with empirical cases, the literature theorizing and empirically investigating the relationship between AC and SL is highly fragmented. This paper aims to critically examine the peer-reviewed literature that focusses on SL and AC in the context of climate change adaptation (CCA).

Special attention is paid to the interplay between the two. Understanding this interplay can help improve our understanding of how CCA takes place in practice and advances theoretical debates on CCA. Systematic review methods are used to analyse 43 papers (1997–2016). The findings reveal three perspectives that each play an important role in different contexts: an AC-focused perspective, a SL-focused perspective, and a hybrid perspective. These differences in conceptualizations of the relationship between SL and AC may seem trivial at first, but they have consequences for the design of learning-based interventions aimed at helping communities respond to climate change. It appears that such interventions need to be preceded by an analysis of the climate change context in order to decide whether to emphasize AC, SL or both simultaneously.

You can find the paper here: The interplay between social learning and adaptive capacity in climate change adaptation or request a copy by emailing me at arjen.wals@wur.nl The DOI is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2017.05.001

Highlights

Social learning (SL) & adaptive capacity (AC) are critical in climate change adaptation.
Social learning does not necessarily build adaptive capacity and vice versa.
Three interplays between SL and AC emerge: SL-focused, AC-focused and hybrid.
The effectiveness of an interplay depends on the climate adaptation context.
This has implications for governance to help communities to adapt to climate change.

Online Masters Course on Education in the context of Sustainable Development at Gothenburg University – starting November 1st

Posted on 13/09/2016 by arjenwals

New Course: Education for sustainable development – an introduction

There is only one Earth. With global challenges such as climate change, mass extinction of species, rising inequity and a growing world population, the prospects for a quality life for all, forever seem rather bleak. Central in this new course is the question: What is the role and responsibility of education in not only responding to sustainability problems but also in preventing them and in creating more sustainable futures? But also what might such education look like? The course will take advantage of some of the materials and lessons learnt from the recently finished Global Environmental Education Course Gothenburg University supported – along with other universities and the US EPA- which was lead by Cornell University in association with the NAAEE’s EECapacity Program.

In this 15 credit Master’s course you will critically and actively explore central concepts and perspectives in the field of education for sustainable development. The course content will be related to the participants’ own backgrounds, specific interests and prior experiences. Master students with different study backgrounds (e.g. environmental sciences, social sciences, economics, arts and humanities) can enrol in this course as long as you have an interest in both sustainable development and education.

The course is offered by Gothenburg University online at half time during the second half of autumn 2016 (Start: November 1 – Finish: March 22, 2017). The main course language is English. There are four blocks: 1) Understanding Sustainable Development, 2) Understanding Education in relation to SD, 3) Understanding learning environments, processes and outcomes conducive to SD and 4) Education in relation to your own SD-challenge (personal project). Each block is divided up in course weeks, each with short introductory videos, background literature, discussion questions and online discussion. Periodically there will be assignments that will be used in providing feedback and assessing the quality of your contributions. The new Global Education Monitor Report on Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All will be one of the texts used in the course.

For the pilot course we are admitting a maximum of 50 students. You will need to formally register for the course through Gothenburg University via this link to the GU course web-page.

More information about course content contact me at: Arjen.wals@gu.se

More information about course logistics and registration can be found via the link to the course’s webpage (hyperlink).

Note: eligible students from European Union can participate without paying tuition to Gothenburg University. Students from outside the European Union will have to pay a tuition fee. It is assumed that participants have a bachelor degree or equivalent and have a proficient mastery of the English language (evidence of this may need to be provided).

Education for people and planet: Creating sustainable futures for all – GEM-2016 soon to be launched

Posted on 15/07/2016 by arjenwals

global-education-monitoring-report-300x225

Starting in 2016 a new series of UNESCO reports, the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Reports, will monitor the state of education in the new framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The new series replaces the earlier Global Monitoring Report (GMR) series. I was brought on board the GEM 2016 Team last December to provide input on the thematic part of the report – especially to provide feedback on the relationship between education and achieving sustainability.

The report has been titled: ‘Education for people and planet: Creating sustainable futures for all’. It is a very comprehensive and well-researched report that seeks to be geographically balanced in its analysis and examples. There are two parts: a thematic part and a monitoring part. My role was mainly limited to providing feedback to the thematic part which covers 5 ‘Ps’s: Planet, Prosperity, People, Place and Partnerships. The thematic Part 1 of the Report focuses on examining the complex interrelationships and links between education and key development sectors. It determines which education strategies, policies and programmes are most effectively linked to the economic, social, environmental and political priorities of the new sustainable development agenda. Part 2 establishes a much needed a monitoring framework for education post-2015, and examine key financing and governance challenges for the post-2015 era.

You can read the concept note that underpins the report here.

The GEM 2016 report will appear in multiple languages.

Transformative Learning for Sustainability: Special Issue

Posted on 23/03/2016 by arjenwals

Ariane König and Nancy Budwig have edited a cutting edge Special Issue for the Journal Current Opinions of Environmental Sustainability on Transformative Learning for Sustainability and more specifically on ‘New requisites to universities in the 21st century’.

This Special Issue focuses on how universities engage in sustainability issues by staging transformative learning opportunities. The special issue features ten case papers from five continents illustrating the changing relationship of learning, research and practice in such programmes. The issue includes a paper on the Luxembourg Certificate in Sustainability and Social Innovation and an introductory overview by Dr König.to which I will contribute in May with a talk on “Sustainability transitions in society: changing science/citizen relations with citizen science for social learning“. The University of Luxembourg has made the entire special issue open access which means that anyone can download all the papers for free, including the one I co-authored with Heila Lotz-Sisitka, David Kronlid and Dylan McGary on Transgressive Learning which you can also download the paper here: transgressiveSocialLearning Transgressive Social Learning

Highlights from the paper are:

Pedagogies are required that are not constrained by current use of limited concepts, or by disciplinary decadence.
Concepts such as resilience are problematic if they hold unsustainable systems and patterns in place.
Disruptive capacity building and transgressive pedagogies are needed for a more sustainable world.
Transformative, transgressive forms of learning requires co-learning in multi-voiced and multi-actor formations.
Higher education should provide possibilities for engaged, lived experience of transformative praxis for students.

“Beyond unreasonable doubt – learning for socio-ecological sustainability…”

Posted on 09/12/2015 by arjenwals

As my ‘special professorship’ has been converted into a ‘personal professorship,’ (I know this is confusing to academics from around the world but I don’t want to use up valuable blog-space to explain it) I was invited to give a second inaugural address titled: Beyond unreasonable doubt – education and learning for socio-ecological sustainability in the anthropocene in the Aula of the Wageningen University on December 17^th

The special day happened to be the warmest December 17th on record… quite fitting for the talk and the cover of the accompanying booklet (with people sitting on an terrace a cold Fall evening in Gothenburg under so-called ‘space heaters’).

A short introduction to the new Chair has been placed on youtube:

Transformative Learning for Socio-ecological Sustainability in less than 3 minutes

Here’s the back flap text of the booklet is now available:

‘For the first time in history one single species has succeeded in living in a way on planet Earth that disrupts major natural systems and forces in such a way that our survival is at stake. A transition is needed to break with resilient unsustainable systems and practices. Such a transition requires active civic engagement in sustainability. New forms of education and learning, including ‘disruptive capacity building’ and ‘transgressive’ pedagogies are urgently needed to foster such engagement.’

If you want to receive the booklet containing the accompanying text to the lecture then send an email to office.ecs@wur.nl with unreasonable doubt in the ‘subject’ and put your name and address in the body of the message and we will post you one.

If you wish you can still attend, sort of, the event by going to:

http://wurtv.wur.nl/p2gplayer/Player.aspx?id=eNMp15

Here you can see the entire ceremony which starts at minute 9 with an introduction by our Vice-Chancellor (Rector Magnificus) Arthur Mol and with me starting the speech (battling the flu but hanging in there – I think/hope) at minute 15. Sometimes the animations I used do not fly-in on WURTV for some reason but fortunately they did in the auditorium). But it’s of good quality and you can advance the timer if you wish to.

Focus of the new Chair in transformative learning for socio-ecological sustainability

In short the new Chair in transformative learning for socio-ecological sustainability explores three important questions: 1) What sustain’abilities’ and responsibilities we need to develop in learners? 2) What learning spaces or ecologies of learning are most suitable in developing those abilities? and 3) How can the cultivation of these abilities, responsibilities and spaces be designed and supported? In other words, the main focus of the chair lies on understanding, designing and supporting learning processes that can help citizens understand complex socio-ecological issues through meaningful engagement and interactions with and within the social, physical and virtual realities of which people are part and the development of the capacities they need to contribute to their resolution.

The addition of ‘socio-ecological’ to sustainability is intentional, as much work done on sustainability nowadays tends to focus on economic sustainability, often without people and planet in mind. In a way sustainability has lost its transformative edge ‘sustainability’ during the last decade as the much of the private sector embraced it as a marketing opportunity. Adrian Parr (2009) even suggests that sustainability has been hijacked and neutered. While economics inevitably is part of the sustainability puzzle, the need to (re)turn to the ecological boundaries in which we have to learn to live together, as well as to the well-being and meaning of life issues for all, has prompted me to make the social-ecological more prominent in the description of this Chair. Therefore, I am particularly interested in understanding and supporting forms of learning that can lead to the engagement of seemingly unrelated actors and organizations in making new knowledge and in taking the actions necessary to address socio-ecological challenges.

Note 1: The booklet containing the inaugural address will be posted to you for free (as long as supplies last) when you email office.ecs@wur.nl with “Unreasonable doubt” in the subject area and your name and postal address in the body of the text).

Note 2: The inaugural address can be followed live via WURTV where it will also be archived: https://wurtv.wur.nl/P2G/cataloguepage.aspx

Transformative, transgressive social learning: rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction

Posted on 14/09/2015 by arjenwals

This weekend (September 12-13, 2015) an new publication appeared that I was privileged to co-author with Heila Lotz-Sisitka (Rhodes University), David Kronlid (University of Uppsala) and Gothenburg), Dylan McGarry (Durban University of Technology) for Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (Vol 16:73–80). It is one of the first papers that I know of that begins to question the emphasis on adaptation and the development of ‘adaptive capacity’ and instead introduces the need for transgression and disruptive capacity if we are to transition towards a new world based on alternative (including ancient ones) values and principles than current dominant ones. Here’s the abstract follow by some highlights in bullet form. The paper itself can be found here for personal use (not for distribution). Transgressive Social Learning The work was supported by a grant by the ISSC.

Abstract

The nature of the sustainability challenges currently at hand is such that dominant pedagogies and forms of learning that characterize higher education need to be reconsidered to enable students and staff to deal with accelerating change, increasing complexity, contested knowledge claims and inevitable uncertainty. In this contribution we identified four streams of emerging transformative, transgressive learning research and praxis in the sustainability sciences that appear generative of a higher education pedagogy that appears more responsive to the key challenges of our time: 1) reflexive social learning and capabilities theory, 2) critical phenomenology, 3) socio-cultural and cultural historical activity theory, and 4) new social movement, postcolonial and decolonisation theory. The paper critiques the current tendency in sustainability science and learning to rely on resilience and adaptive capacity building and argues that in order to break with maladaptive resilience of unsustainable systems it is essential to strengthen transgressive learning and disruptive capacity-building.

Highlights

The ‘learning modes’ needed for responding to and engaging the wicked problems of sustainability, require pedagogies that are not constrained by current use of limited concepts (e.g. the resilience concept), or by disciplinary decadence.
Concepts such as resilience can be problematic when they keeps hegemonic unsustainable systems, patterns and routines from changing.
Disruptive capacity building and transgressive pedagogies are needed to create a world that is more sustainable than the one in prospect.
Transformative, transgressive forms of learning require engaged forms of pedagogy that involve multi-voiced engagement with multiple actors as well an emphasis on co-learning, cognitive justice, and the formation and development of individual and collective agency.
Higher education institutions should provide space for transgressing taken-for-granted norms, existing ethical and epistemological imperialism in society and higher education itself, and in doing so provide possibilities for engaged, lived experience of transformative praxis for students as a necessary part of their education.

“Saving the Planet hurts the local economy” – Climate Change makes its way into the world’s classrooms

Posted on 23/04/2014 by arjenwals

Ok – it has taken up the whole 10 years of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development but the day before Earth Day, April 22nd, a global newspaper, The International New York Times, published a half page article on the role of and the need for education for sustainable development with a specific focus on teaching climate change in schools. Hundreds, if not thousands of articles have been published about climate change and sustainable development but rarely do they make a reference to the role of education, teaching and learning. As the world is confronted with major ecological crises leading to or amplifying major social crises (and vice versa as well) it is about time that the media begin to engage the question of ‘how should education respond?’ ‘what should people be learning and how?’ The article – which you can find HERE: ESDinIntlNYTimes210414 – includes an interview with Alexander Leicht, Head of UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development section a number of other informants from various parts of the world. While there is a growing awareness that there is a need of involving people meaningfully in what seem to be the greatest challenges of our time the article also notes resistance to doing so. In Wyoming, for instance, law-makers blocked the teaching of climate change saying that doing so could hurt the local economy. This painfully makes clear the difficult situation we find ourselves in.

“We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom” (E.O. Wilson)* – A new book “Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change”

Posted on 03/11/2011 by arjenwals

….to help create the wisdom we – all 7+ billion of us – will need to transition towards a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect.

We live in turbulent times. Changes occur at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when we try to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, homogenization of culture, and so on. They are all examples of the poignant sustainability impact of our increasingly consumption-oriented lifestyles marinated in a globalizing economy. We are facing problems and challenges for which there are no ready-made solutions that can be confidently prescribed and universally distributed. Some scholars argue we are already living in “post-normal times”: times loaded with uncertainty, contested (scientific) knowledge and high levels of complexity. In such times conventional routines and systems no longer seem to work, not in business, governance, resource management, science, communication, education nor in any other domain or field. A rethinking of these routines and systems and a creative co-creation of alternative ones appears essential in moving towards a more sustainable world.

Focus

Was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a major ecological and economic disaster? Or are the ecosystems rapidly self-healing and is the economy getting back on its feet again? How bad is the tsunami-induced nuclear disaster in Japan? For whom? Will increases in palm oil production and biofuel accelerate the loss of rainforests and biodiversity? Can organic food production feed the world? Can genetically modified crops feed the world (safely)? Is there such a thing as a climate neutral building? Paper or plastic? How sustainable is solar energy when the resources needed to make photovoltaic panels are finite? These are just a few questions for which there are no simple answers or single truths. This book attributes a key role to learning in responding to sustainability challenges in post-normal times. It explores the implications of living in times of accelerating change for learning and how new forms of learning can help people in re-orienting society towards sustainability. How do citizens handle “sustainability confusion” about who is right or who is wrong, who to believe and who not to believe, about how bad or good things are and what to do or what not to do in a particular place or situation? And, more importantly perhaps, how do we deal with contradictions and the rhetoric oftentimes used to advance a particular interest or perspective? A key premise here is that living in times of uncertainty, complexity, contestation, but also in times of technologically mediated hyper-connectivity and information overload, inevitably has consequences for learning in formal, non-formal and informal settings. But what are these consequences? And what kinds of competences and qualities need to be developed in learners to handle them? How can they be developed?

Secondly, this book explores the possibilities and dilemmas of designing, strengthening and facilitating “learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability.” Contributors introduce and discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable behaviors, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create more sustainable lifestyles. Examples of such learning are: learning by doing, social learning, transformative learning, cross-boundary learning, service learning, learning from nature (biomimickry), etc.

Finally, the book also explores questions like: What role do uncertainty and complexity-related emotions such as stress, anxiety and fear play in this context? What kind of capacities, qualities and competencies do we need to strengthen in people to be able to live well within the carrying capacity of the earth?

“Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change” is located at the interface of science and society. It explores niches and edges navigated by reflective practitioners and grounded scholars who share a concern for the well-being of the planet. The editors encourage the formation of so-called “hybrid author teams” – people energetically working together from obvious or not so obvious complementary perspectives. We are interested in chapters that invite a response on the part of the reader. Authors are encouraged to use powerful narratives, stories, metaphors, contradictions and questions that do not tell readers what to think and what to do, but rather provide a mirror that helps them rethink, re-frame and, indeed, transform their own practices in both professional and personal contexts.

Chapters come from a range of (inter)disciplinary fields including: conservation biology, eco-justice, education, ethics, innovation, communication, science-technology-society studies, development studies, chaos and complexity studies, systems thinking, natural resource management and governance, social marketing and business studies. A range of divergent perspectives on living and learning in times of change is provided. These differing perspectives have different disciplinary orientations (such as philosophy, ethics, learning psychology, conservation biology, ecology, cybernetics, risk communication, and environmental science), a sector background (for instance corporate social responsibility, governance and policy-making, transport and mobility, energy production, and bio-based economies) or represent a particular vantage point (for example, technologically-meditated learning and social networking, social and environmental justice, disaster management, citizen science and food-security).

You can find the book here

Publisher

The book was the third in Wageningen Academic Publishers’ Education and Sustainable Development Series. The first successful volumes were: Social learning: Towards a sustainable world (2007) edited by Arjen Wals and Young people, education, and sustainable development: Exploring principles, perspectives, and praxis (2009) edited by Peter Blaze Corcoran and Philip Osano. All chapters will be peer reviewed. The book was published in April 2012 and wwas first presented at the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil in June 2012. The publication of the book was supported by Agentschap.NL. Agentschap.NL is responsible for the implementation of the Dutch Learning for Sustainable Development Policy.

Editors

Arjen Wals, Wageningen University, The Netherlands & Peter Blaze Corcoran, Florida Gulf Coast University,USA

Editorial assistants

Rebekah L. Tauritz,Wageningen University, The Netherlands; Joseph Paul Weakland,Florida Gulf Coast University,USA; Brandon P. Hollingshead,Florida Gulf Coast University,USA

* opening quote comes from: Wilson, E.O. (1998). Consilience: the unity of knowledge. New York: Vintage Books

Blurring Boundaries and Expanding Horizons – Re-thinking education and learning in an era of (un)sustainability

Posted on 25/10/2011 by arjenwals

Although technological advances, new policies, laws and legislation are essential in moving towards sustainability, it is not enough! Ultimately, sustainability needs to emerge in the everyday fabric of life – in the minds of people, organizations and communities, and in the values they live by. Such emergence depends on how and what people learn, both individually and collectively. A central question in my work is how to create conditions that support new forms of learning that take full advantage of the diversity, creativity and resourcefulness which is all around us, but so far remains largely untapped in our search for a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect. This question was also the focus of a two day seminar organized in The Netherlands a while back with Rietje van Dam-Mieras (a UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainable Development and ICTs) and the able assistance of Rebekah Tauritz.

Fortunately the persistent call for a more sustainable world continues to influence policy-making, governance, public debate, business decisions and lifestyles. Nonetheless we are still searching for adequate responses to manifestations of unsustainability which are manifold (e.g. the depletion of natural resources, the rise of unnatural disasters, human-induced climate change, marine toxicity, and rising inequity). This search is marinated in complexity, uncertainty and controversy. After all, governing, consuming, producing and living inevitably takes place in rich social contexts with actors representing innumerable vantage points, interests, values, power positions, beliefs and needs.

‘Learning in one form or another is increasingly seen as a key in transitioning towards a more sustainable world. Learning-based change, anticipatory learning, collaborative learning, community problem-solving, and social learning represent just a few of the many ideas and concepts that are connected to the quest for sustainability. It is through various form of learning that a more reflexive society can emerge, one in which creativity, flexibility and diversity are released and used to deal with the challenges posed by sustainability, one that has the capacity to challenge existing routines, norms and values and one that has both the desire and the ability to correct itself.

Universities, colleges, schools and institutes of vocational education have a key role to play fostering these types of learning and need to figure out the possible consequences for the way they structure their curricula, for the kind of research that is needed, for the kinds competencies they need and wish to develop in staff members and students, and for the way they interface with the community. The latter is crucial in times that demand increased permeability between disciplines, cultures, institutions and sectors.

Key questions we need to address include:

How can schools, colleges and universities participate meaningfully in trans-boundary learning projects that are rooted in (local) sustainability issues?
How can we utilize the change potential of diversity in co-creating new visions and more sustainable ways of living and working?
How (and to what degree) can such learning be designed, supported and facilitated?

“message-in-a-bottle”

Transformative learning

Learning and change within people and society towards a more sustainable world

Tag Archives: climate change