Pedagogy of Entanglement and other groundbreaking works – Springer SDG4-Series taking off

Posted on 14/03/2023 by arjenwals

Recently, a few more titles appeared in the Springer SDG4 Series that are expanding horizons, addressing blind spots and offer guidelines for alternative ways of thinking and acting in and through education in light of pressing global sustainability challenges. One of them finally arrived on my desk today: Koen Wessel’s “Pedagogy of Entanglement: a response to complex societal challenges that permeate our lives”. This book is a real treasure that is based on Koen’s dissertation which he completed last year at Utrecht University (with joint supervision from Wageningen University). You can find the book here.

The Springer Sustainable Development Goals Series aims to provide a comprehensive platform to the scientific, teaching and research communities studying issues in the fields of geography, earth sciences, environmental science, social sciences, engineering, policy, planning, and human geosciences in order to contribute knowledge toward achieving the current 17 Sustainable

Development Goals. Volumes in the series are organized by relevant goal and guided by an expert international panel of advisors.

The subseries that I am co-editing together with Nicole Ardoin of Standford University, focuses on SDG 4: Quality Education and more specifically on the following questions: What kind of quality or qualities must education have in order to be able to contribute to Sustainable Development as expressed by the SDGs? How can such education be developed, implemented and assessed in a wide range of contexts across the globe? How can quality education, that contributes to the well-being of all people and the whole planet, becomeaccessible for everyone?

Topics covered by the SDG 4 subseries include, but are to limited to: education policy and governance for ESD/ESE and Global Citizenship Education (GCE), conceptualizing sustainability competence other possible learning outcomes of ESD and GCE, pedagogical approaches to ESD/ESE and GCE, the role of teacher training/professional development in fostering ESD/ESE/GCE,

assessment of ESD/ESE and GCE-related learning, creating whole school or whole institution approaches to sustainability, making ESD/ESE and GCE accessible and relevant for all learners in a wide range of context across the globe.

Should you be interested in writing or editing a book for this Series, contact Zachary Romano in Springer’s New York office or drop me or Nicole a line!

Designing a module for supporting secondary biology students’ morality through socioscientific issues in the human-nature context – new research

Posted on 23/02/2023 by arjenwals

One of my PhD’s. Tore van der Leij – jointly supervised with Prof Martin Goedhart and Prof. Lucy Avramidoo, both from Groningnen University here in The Netherlands where Tore hopes to receive his degree sometime this year – just had one of his studies published in the Journal of Biological Education.

The paper, of which Tore is the lead-author, poses that in addressing contemporary socio-ecological challenges it is imperative to engage individuals with the moral dilemmas in the human-nature context. A socioscientific-issues (SSI) approach to secondary biology education can contribute to engaging students in moral dilemmas and reflecting on their values.

Following a design research methodology, the paper aimed to: (1) develop a set of design principles of an intervention in Dutch upper secondary SSI biology education, aimed at supporting secondary biology students’ morality in the human-nature context; (2) concretise the design principles as a module.The practical output of the study is a module, which was refined and improved during the design phase, and then implemented by two biology teachers. In this paper, we present an exemplary example of a lesson from the module. As theoretical output, the paper discusses the role of the design principles: nature of the dilemmas; Four Component Model of morality; group work; and ethical matrix. Based on experiences in classrooms, recommendations are provided for further research and practice.

The paper can be found HERE: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00219266.2023.2174160

Full citation: Leij, T. van der; Goedhart, M.; Avraamidou, L. & Wals, A. (2023) Designing a module for supporting secondary biology students’ morality through socioscientific issues in the human-nature context, Journal of Biological Education, DOI: 10.1080/00219266.2023.2174160

For another paper related to this research see:

Tore Van Der Leij, Lucy Avraamidou, Arjen Wals & Martin Goedhart (2022) Supporting Secondary Students’ Morality Development in Science Education, Studies in Science Education, 58:2, 141-181, DOI: 10.1080/03057267.2021.1944716

KEYWORDS:

Just out: Embodiment Talk – a podcast on what embodiment might mean for education and creating true connections with ourselves, the other and the world

Posted on 21/02/2023 by arjenwals

In this Embodiment Talk I am interviewed by Marjon van Opijnen of the Embodiment Lab

We talk about the importance of embodiment in education. And how we can create education systems that create space for connections with ourselves, the other and the world. We talk about:

• What embodiment means for education;

• How education can help to create true connections with ourselves, the other and the world;

• The different forms of learning in eduation and how these can contribute to a more sustainable world;

• How education can teach us to criticize, connect and care. And that vulnerability can exist next to strength;

• How to integrate a systemic perspective in the education system.

Here you can go straight to the Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJlpE3rK0MM&t=153s

Go to: https://www.youtube.com/@embodimentlab-marjonvanopijnen for all the podcasts Marjon has made so far.

On transformation, unnovation and disruption in and through education – a Podcast recorded at Western Norway University

Posted on 08/11/2022 by arjenwals

You can find the 17 minute conversation on Spotify here!

Education in Times of Climate Change – comprehensive NORRAG Special Volume

Posted on 27/09/2022 by arjenwals

Climate change is not a new issue for education, but new levels of consensus and concern are emerging, suggesting that new policy developments may follow. This NORRAG Special Issue (NSI 07) addresses the question of how education is to equip learners to participate in climate action that would fundamentally disrupt existing problematic systems. This NSI has the potential to inform pedagogical praxis, co-learning, curriculum, climate action, policy formulation, frameworks for evaluating success, resourcing decisions and what we might consider educative acts for engaging with climate change and its multi-dimensional uncertainties, risks and opportunities.

Edited by South African Professors Eureta Rosenberg and Heila Lotz-Sisitka, this is one of the most comprehensive and ground braking collections of papers available at the moment. The special issue is completely open access. You can find the full table of contents here.

I am very pleased to have found two wonderful Norwegian colleagues – Astrid Sinnes of the Norwegian Life Sciences University and Ole Andreas Kvamme of the University of Oslo who were willing to join in writing a contribution which is titled: School Strikes as Catalysts for Rethinking Educational Institutions, Purposes and Practices

I am also delighted to see two of my former PhD’s, Thomas Macintyre and Martha Chaves, based in Colombia in the special issue as well with a paper on Climate Change Resilience through Collaborative Learning in the Colombian Coffee Region – they co-authored with Tatiana Monroy who, like omas and Martha volunteers for Fundación Mentes en Transición, Colombia, South America

There will be an online launch of the NORRAG Special Issue 07 (NSI 07): Education in Times of Climate Change, will take place on 6 October 2022 at 16:00 – 17:30 CEST. For more information about the llaunch event have look here!

Creating a sense of community and space for subjectification in an online course on sustainability education during times of physical distancing

Posted on 25/04/2022 by arjenwals

Handmade painting by a student on “Empowerment –
a rising sensation that liberates you from ‘sinking’ into negativity” – using artistic forms of evaluation of learning, helped both subjectification and creating a sense of community in the course

This paper recently appeared in International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. It explores students’ sense of community and belonging in an online course on environmental and sustainable education during times of physical distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a case study approach, the results show that students perceived a sense of community that was collectively build during the four week program. Sense of community was linked to and facilitated by the learning environment and the educators’ and students’ role throughout the course. Prominent factors here are interaction and inclusion created with mutual effort by design, the educator and student.

This research arose after the course ELS-31806 Environmental Education and Learning for Sustainability[1] was converted as an ‘offline’ course into an online course due to COVID-19. The original content of the course enables students to systematically discuss important concerns in the development of an effective curriculum and/or operation for the environment and sustainable development using a range of instrumental and emancipatory approaches. But foremost ELS-31806 is a course that has always been, well appreciated and highly valued by participants for its highly experiential and hands-on approach.

However, due to COVID-19 this year’s course (2020) was changed into a less experiential on-line format mediated by Zoom for interaction and by Brightspace for course structure and organisation. This somewhat ad-hoc and sudden departure from the traditional successful format, lowered the instructors, and probably also, the students’ expectations about the course’ ability to create a vibrant learning community. Yet, contrary to pre-course expectations, ‘something’ (i.e. a sense) arose over the course of four weeks online education that both students and staff considered to be special or meaningful. These hunches got confirmed several weeks after by Wageningen UR’s student evaluation system PACE which revealed that the students highly valued the course.

We were intrigued by the question of how this online edition evoked similar, or nearly similar outcomes to its offline counterpart. After first checking whether our hunches were right about the course and what might explain the high evaluation marks, we centre in the paper’s main question:

What are key characteristics of an online course that fosters subjectification (personal development and inner-sustainability in relation to others and the other) and creates a sense of community?

The paper was led by former MsC student Robbert Hesen and co-authored by myself and ELS Postdoc Rebekah Tauritz.

Citation

Hesen, R., Wals, A.E.J. and Tauritz, R.L. (2022), “Creating a sense of community and space for subjectification in an online course on sustainability education during times of physical distancing”, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-07-2021-0270

Triggered by these results we decided to investigate what might explain these results.

[1] A course within the Education and Learning Sciences (ELS) chair group at Wageningen University & Research (UR): https://ssc.wur.nl/Handbook/Course/ELS-31806

The Imaginative Power of the Region. Learning for the SDGs together – February 8th (on-line)

Posted on 06/02/2022 by arjenwals

On 8 February 2022 SPARK the Movement organizes an interactive online meeting with regional, national and European educators around the question:

How can we mobilize the imaginative power of the region, thus learning together how to take up global challenges and focus on the local impact we can make?

SPARK’s conviction is that sustainability needs to be a part of the ‘everyday fabric of life’. The scale of a region seems to be a most suitable level to examine and enact sustainability in day-to-day life and in everyday business. The meeting is organised by United Nation’s supported Regional Centre of Expertise ‘Fryslan’ in The Netherlands. I will give a short introduction to the Whole School Approach as a key driver of sustainability.

Anyone can join but you need to sign up here: https://sparkthemovement.nl/programma/

PROGRAMME

SIGN UP HERE (BEFORE THE 8TH OF FEBRUARY, 2022)

Whole School Approaches (WSA) to Sustainability – Principles, Practices and Prospects – Call for Contributions

Posted on 27/01/2022 by arjenwals

It is my pleasure to share two calls for contributions in relation to the development of a Whole School Approach (WSA) to Sustainability. The first one relates to an international hybrid conference organized by the Dutch government that will take place in The Netherlands and partially online late March of 2022, the second one relates to an edited Volume on the topic in the Springer SDG4 Series on Quality Education.

Call for exemplary practices of a Whole School Approach to Sustainable Development

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy have commissioned a report to provide practical examples of how a Whole Institution/ Whole School Approach (WSA) is being used in practice around the world to engage with SDG4 – Quality Education, especially in relation to sustainable development issues as covered by the other SDGs. The reports aim is to highlight different aspects of a WSA – curriculum development, pedagogical innovation, school management and leadership, school-community relationships, professional development of staff, and the school as a ‘living laboratory’ for experimenting with healthy, equitable, democratic, and ecologically sustainable living – especially how these aspects can be integrated to mutually strengthen each other.

We are particularly interested in so-called critical case-studies that do not only highlight best-practice strategies and success stories, but also share the struggles, set-backs and challenges underneath and ways to overcome them. The report will be published as part of the WSA International Conference happening in The Netherlands on the 30^th-31^st March.

If you know of such a school (primary, secondary, or vocational) from your country that can be used as an exemplary example of a WSA in action, or want further details, please contact Rosalie Mathie via email. rosalie.mathie@nmbu.no before February 15th so she can still contact people connected to the exemplary case.

2 Call for Abstracts Springer SDG4 Series
Whole School Approaches to Sustainability – Principles, Practices and Prospects

Ingrid Eikeland, Brigitte Bjønness, Astrid Sinnes and Arjen Wals (Eds)

Schools across the globe are seeking to respond to emerging topics like; climate change, biodiversity loss, healthy food and food security, and global citizenship. They are increasingly encouraged to do so by educational policies that recognize the importance of these topics and by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While there is recognition that such topics should not be added on to an already full curriculum, but rather require more systemic and integrated approaches, doing so in practice has proven to be difficult. This edited Volume seeks to engage educators, school leaders, educational policy-makers and scholars of sustainability in education in key principles, critical perspectives, generative processes and tools that can help realize a Whole School Approach to Sustainability. The book will contain three sections: 1) Principles & Perspectives, 2) Critically Reflexive Contextual Case Studies (Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary and Vocational Education) and 3) Synthesis: Challenges and Prospects.

The editors are inviting abstracts (no more than 500 words) of potential chapters. Contributions can be research-based (spanning different genres of research) but can also be more conceptual in the form of critically reflexive essays. Abstracts should indicate a best fit with one of the sections and need to be accompanied with short bios of the author(s) and, if possible, references to prior publications that relate to the topic.

Please send your initial ideas for a contribution or any queries you may have to: ingrid.eikeland@nmbu.no before March 1^st. All abstracts will be reviewed by the editors and a selection will be made for further development into a full manuscript to be published by the end of 2022.

Invitational Research Seminar – SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION RESEARCH IN TIMES OF CLIMATE CRISIS – Gent, Belgium

Posted on 24/01/2022 by arjenwals

I have posted about this seminar before. Originally the seminar was going to take place in March but it has been rescheduled to June 13-16. The deadline for submission has shifted as well to February 15th. This is a unique seminar with some great people in the field of environmental and sustainability participating. Have a look here for the key info. https://www.cdo.ugent.be/news/call-proposals-15th-invitational-seminar-ese-research

Cultivating imaginative disruptions and light-heartedness in times of gravity

Posted on 03/10/2021 by arjenwals

Some journals are truly hidden gems – Airea is a peer-reviewed journal on Arts & Interdisciplinary Research. Together with wonderful colleague Anke de Vrieze of Wageningen UR and Åse Bjurström of University of Gothenburg, former PhD and MSc-student of mine, Natalia Eernstman and current PhD Kelli Rose Pearson, we contributed a paper to a Special Issue on ‘Interdisciplinary relationships within spaces and bodies of collaboration‘. Our paper is titled:

Designing Collective Artist Residencies – Cultivating imaginative disruptions and light-heartedness in times of gravity

A nice feature of this special journal is that it is fully open access: all wonderful papers can be freely downloaded from the journal’s website here! Please find below the abstract of our paper:

Invitational Research Seminar – SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION RESEARCH IN TIMES OF CLIMATE CRISIS

Posted on 01/10/2021 by arjenwals

I am happy to announce the return of the infamous Invitational Research Seminars on Environmental & Sustainability Education. As one of the co-organisers I have the privileged to be part of an excellent group led this tim by Katrien van Poeck of Ghent University in Belgium. These are relatively small seminars. While they are no longer ‘by invitation only’ and open to anyone with a strong, insightful, creative, provocative, etc, proposal, spaces will be limited. Have a look a the key info, the theme and the wonderful sub-themes below or go directly to the Centre for Sustainable Development at Ghent University https://www.cdo.ugent.be/news/call-proposals

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=3hyB1-_sbEmPkaF4YkG5nAXy6iDz_itPuL2K0IeXr0VUOFA5NUdJTzNPVkZHRTRLQVNGMVRRN0c5Ni4u

Environmental and sustainability education in the Benelux countries: research, policy and practices at the intersection of education and societal transformation

Posted on 20/11/2018 by arjenwals

The journal Environmental Education Research recently published its third regional special issue covering trends and research in environmental and sustainability education in the BeNeLux countries. Together with Katrien van Poeck (UofGhent, Belgium) and Katrien van Poeck (UofLuxembourg, Luxembourg, I was a co-editor. Earlier regional special issues focussed on the Nordic countries (Scandinavia) and on Germany. Here you find a link to the introductory paper we wrote: BeNeLux Special Issue and here is a link to the Special Issue itself: Routledge Link to SI

Below some more information.

Table of Contents

Act Now for Environmental Education – A renewed global pledge for strengthening education and learning for a more sustainable world

Posted on 02/10/2018 by arjenwals

GlobalAction The Global Environmental Education Partnership (website) has created a pledge for reinvigorating Environmental Education world-wide in light of urgent sustainability challenges. In the pledge the global environmental education community is asked to work toward three visionary goals:

1 Every nation has an environmentally informed, empowered, and active populace and

workforce.

2 The leadership of every government, business, NGO, and educational institution uses

environmental education to achieve environmentally sustainable outcomes.

3 Every educational institution incorporates environmental literacy into its mission, goals,

and activities.

A tall order? Yes. But goals should be tall to keep them in sight as we advance step-by-incremental-step towards attaining them.

A pledge letter can be found here. By signing it you are endorsing these long-term goals and committing to do your part to achieve them. This website highlights 10 suggested areas for action. Hundreds of educators around the world have vetted these actions and helped outline key areas of focus for the field. Over time, GEEP will provide resources and support, including ongoing campaigns and activities, to help inspire action to move our collective agenda forward. By signing the pledge, you can stay connected to this global network.

Environmental Education in Asia – Special Issue in the Japanese Journal of EE

Posted on 19/07/2017 by arjenwals

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This special issue edited by Shinichi Furihata and Sachi Ninomiya-Lim from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and Tokai University respectively, is the result of a 2-year collaborative project involving environmental education (EE) societies/ associations from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, North America, and Australia. In the editorial introduction the following is stated:

“The aim of the project was to create a platform to share ideas, practices, and theories of EE in the Asian region, with English as the common language. The discussion was organized around five core themes: 1) Development, current situation, and challenges of EE in formal education; 2) Development, current situation, and challenges of EE in non-formal education; 3) Research trends in EE; 4) Insights for EE in Asia from outside of Asia; 5) Review, comparison, and synthesis of findings to go beyond a presentation of EE in various countries and instead highlight the recurring transversal issues. We hope this special issue will contribute to furthering dialogue among EE scholars and practitioners in Asia, and to building bridges between EE in Asia and other regions.

The Japanese Journal of Environmental Education (JJEE), published by the JSOEE/JSFEE since 1991, has provided EE researchers and practitioners with an important space to share their ideas, thoughts, methods, and evaluative analyses, and to participate in theoretical discussions, etc., similar to many EE journals published in other countries and regions. However, since most of JJEE articles are written in Japanese (with summaries in English), its readership is essentially limited to Japanese language users, most of whom reside in Japan. Thus, although the JJEE has become a critical platform for communication among Japanese EE researchers and practitioners, there is a need to expand these discussions to a wider, global network, so that Japanese EE professionals may participate in international and transnational debates on issues of wider relevance in EE. Similarly, EE research in different journals published in Asian countries, including Korea and Taiwan, is mostly written in the local language and is therefore largely inaccessible to people who do not read these languages. The aim of this special issue, therefore, was to create a space where such discussions may be shared and connected. In addition, we decided to invite several prominent international researchers to provide their insights, ideas, and suggestions on developing EE in Asia, increasing Asian participation in the global EE arena, and promoting collaboration on EE with different countries and regions around the world.”

I was asked to write a reflective response paper together with Peter Blaze Corcoran and Joseph Weakland in which we look ahead to the future of EE in the region and beyond. Our paper titles “Preparing for the Ecocene: Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education” is based on the introduction to the recent book we edited for Wageningen Academic Publishers (see elsewhere in this blog). All papers are available as open-access and can be found here: Link to the entire Special Issue You can find our closing paper in which we introduce the notion of the imaginary Ecocene here: Preparing for the Ecocene: Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education

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).

Transformative learning

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

Tag Archives: environmental education