Global environmental challenges brought on by over-consumption, limited resources, and climate change will task teacher education programs to prepare teacher candidates with new paradigms in problem-solving, collaboration, and innovation. Skills such as collaborating across cultures and borders, thinking critically and creatively, reflecting on…

This essay explains that periodic examination of the goals of education is essential for educational institutions to ensure they are adequately preparing students to address the challenges of the present and build a better future. It argues that education is an ethical enterprise, and that clear and shared goals provide education institutions with…

This article engages in the discussion about education's role in relation to sustainability problems, a debate characterised by a tension between two legitimate concerns: a concern about the instrumentalisation of education, and a concern for the urgent need of widespread engagement and mobilisation for coping with the consequences of severe…

Climate education is increasingly being taught in schools, and groups are looking to pass climate education into law. This article looks at climate justice, a framing of the overarching climate movement, to advocate for an education that inspires action. Drawing from Freire's 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed', it makes a case for problem-posing…

Climate change is a 'super-wicked' problem associated with challenges including food security, mass migration and biodiversity loss. Young people are increasingly expecting their university education to prepare them to address these challenges. This requires universities to go beyond scientific accounts of climate change, and to engage students in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review and provide propositions about survey assessment tools of the key sustainability competencies (KSCs) of education for sustainability. UNESCO points out how education plays an important role in transforming societies towards a sustainable future and achieving the United Nations' sustainable…

This activity provides opportunities for middle school students to design bio-inspired, eco-friendly vehicles. Twenty-four 8th grade students (12 girls, 12 boys) engaged in the activity which was implemented in four class periods, 40 minutes each, in an elective Environmental Education course. During the activity, students engaged in engineering…

This case study presents a detailed description of how community-based environmental education can be used to increase environment awareness and knowledge among migrant children and youth. Data was collected primarily from interviews and learning activities with 454 participants aged 11 to 19 years. The results show that children and youth are…

Middle school students' mathematical understanding benefits from connecting mathematics to other content areas in the curriculum. This month's activity explores the issue of the scarcity of freshwater, a natural resource (activity sheets are included). This activity concentrates on the critical areas mentioned in the Common Core State…

Professionals in the environmental domain require cognitive interdisciplinary skills to be able to develop sustainable solutions to environmental problems. We demonstrate that education in environmental systems analysis allows for the development of these skills. We identify three components of cognitive interdisciplinary skills: (1) the ability…

Simulations for teaching environmental issues are described

Introductory college physical geography courses can be made more relevant by starting with environmental problems of social concern and going on pertinent subject matter to explain the problems. The implications of a problems approach to teaching-learning processes are also discussed. (NH)

Discusses a generalized approach to societal problems, consisting of a series of questions that can be asked as problems are investigated. Questions focus on nature of problem situation, what problems are, situational/historical contexts of problems, possible solutions, consequences of solutions, ways of testing proposed solutions, and what…

The entire higher education program at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay focuses upon problems associated with people and the environment. This article describes the program's goals, implementation and benefits. (WB)