Sustainability Education 

The University’s Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy includes ‘Learning for Sustainable Development’ as a key thematic principle, to enable all students to engage in sustainability education. The University’s Sustainability Strategy ‘Promising Futures’ highlights the importance of learning based change approaches to sustainability and strives to embed sustainability within all professional courses at the University by 2015.

‘Promising Futures’ also includes the wider aim of bringing a culture of sustainability learning to the whole institution, so that the University serves as a model of good practice. Modelling good practice in sustainability education also means reaching beyond the University campus, to work in partnership with local and regional communities and groups via our UN Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development .

Sustainability education or learning involves more than providing expert knowledge to inform people about sustainability issues. It is about encouraging transformative learning - the capacity to construct knowledge, to challenge practice, to critique and debate sustainability issues. Various labels are used to describe this sustainability process – Education for Sustainability (EfS); Education for Sustainable Development (ESD); Education for Sustainable Future; Learning for Sustainability. Although there are differences in the content (and often in the context) of these, underpinning these labels is a common pedagogical approach which seeks to empower the learner to explore and engage with sustainability.

Sustainability in the Curriculum

Sustainability issues take on different forms across subject areas and this flexibility is fundamental for effective sustainability education. ‘Sustainability’ is a contested, changeable concept and a challenge that shifts in relation to different problems and contexts. Providing education for sustainability is not just about creating courses that target sustainability as a new subject area. It is about integrating sustainability learning opportunities across all subject areas, so that students will be better equipped to deal with sustainability issues in all aspects of life and question social thinking and practices which influence global-local futures.

Sustainability Education Support at the University

Recognising that staff need support in creating learning opportunities for sustainability, inside and outside of the curriculum, the University invests in supporting the professional development of staff across all faculties. This takes the form of: bi-monthly expert seminars from key national and international figures; exploratory and skill development workshops; action research and reflective practice projects; thematic and pedagogical debates and resource development for particular subject areas. For up-to-date information on Sustainability Learning and Education opportunities please see Sustainability News and Events or contact Associate Director Sustainability (academic) Dr Alex Ryan (aryan@glos.ac.uk).

The culture of sustainability learning at the University is also supported by internal institutes so that staff can take advantage of symposiums, project funding and fellowship opportunities and pedagogical research to develop their academic and teaching practice for sustainability:

• The Centre for Active Learning (CeAL) is a HEFCE-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning that supports sustainability learning as part of its promotion of innovative active learning based on inquiry and reflection.
• The Pedagogic Research and Scholarship Institute (PRSI) was established as part of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund and includes sustainability as one of the priority themes for staff pedagogic research funding and events.
• The International Research Institute in Sustainability (IRIS) has a strong learning and professional education focus, IRIS offers annual PhD studentships in ESD as well as opportunities for staff and students to develop their sustainability education research skills. IRIS undertakes ESD research for major international agencies funded by UNESCO and the European Union.

Social Learning for Sustainability

The University recognises that learning for sustainability can also occur outside of the formal courses offered at UoG – in the broader social context. Through practising what we preach across our management, administrative and campus operations we provide a basis for staff and students to engage with sustainability in practice. This experience provides concrete learning opportunities, for example through our recycling initiatives and biodiversity work on campus, and through the Student Union allotment society and Eco-Power Rangers group. See the Student Union Sustainability pages for more details.

International Learning Partnerships for Sustainability

The University is striving to develop and promote global educational partnerships that support sustainable development and the principles of transformative collaborative working:

• In Uganda, we involve Geography and Environmental Management students with the National Teachers College in Kaliro. As part of this partnership, students are involved with the exchange of learning resources and IT equipment, and take part in linked projects, cultural exchange, field trips, mentoring and applied skills development.
• In Bangladesh, the University has a longstanding partnership with the University of Liberal Arts (ULAB), which shares our focus on active learning for sustainability and citizenship. ULAB engages students in projects on agricultural, community and educational development topics, and a project began in 2007 to explore active learning and institutional change in ESD and to exchange findings between our organisations.

Curriculum Innovation

“Greener by Degrees”

The University is home to a number of pioneering sustainability educators whose work was highlighted in the publication “Greener by Degrees: Exploring Sustainability through Higher Education Curricula”. This collection showcases examples of pedagogic innovation in subjects as diverse as accountancy, teacher education, landscape design and broadcast journalism, and was shortlisted for the 2009 Green Gown Awards for Continuous Improvement (Specific Area).

“Skills for Sustainability”
The undergraduate module ‘Skills for Sustainability’ was Highly Commended in the 2007-08 HEEPI Green Gown Awards, for its creative approaches to developing student capacity to engage actively in sustainability. These include a ‘Question Time’ style expert panel and a ‘Green Dragons’ Den’ process to judge sustainable business ideas proposed by students.

“Language and Ecology” 
The first year undergraduate module ‘Language and Ecology’ (now renamed ‘Discourse and Sustainability’) was Highly Commended in the 2006-2007 HEEPI Green Gown Awards for its ability to engage students in active critique of ‘unsustainability’ in their societies and to enable them to envisage and promote sustainable future alternatives.