Presentations at St Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (September 29/30, 2011)
Lecture description:
Climate Change, Sustainability and Education. David will critically explore responses to the prospect of runaway climate change within education generally and education for sustainable development in particular. He will argue that the predominant educational response can be characterized as ‘shallow’ given the depth, breadth, severity, stealth and urgency of the climate change crisis. Then, he’ll explore what ‘deep’ climate change education will involve and what the implications are for schools and universities. Those implications are transformative in nature, scope and intent. He hopes those attending will be challenged but inspired.
On 30 September he will facilitate a whole-day workshop for SMU faculty on the topic of sustainability across the curriculum.
Workshop description:
Towards the Sustainability University. David will explore a four-dimensional model of the sustainability university covering Curriculum, Campus, Community and (institutional) Culture and explore the synergies arising from the parallel development and interfacing of the four dimensions. He will particularly focus on Curriculum , demonstrating how campus, community and institutional change initiatives can be folded into learning programs and learning dynamics, including student action research. He will go on to offer examples and case studies of how sustainability can be addressed across the university curriculum. A further focus of the workshop will be the importance of interdisciplinary frames for delivering sustainability curricula, not the easiest thing to achieve within learning institutions in which disciplinary structures and cultures remain a more or less inviolable fact of life. He hopes those participating will leave equipped with new takes on sustainability, clearer understanding of its relevance to their academic field of interest, and a sense of the art of the possible for addressing sustainability across their programs.
During his time in Canada (till mid-October), David will also co-facilitate Sustainability Frontiers events in Nova Scotia and Ontario. He will also conduct, with Fumiyo Kagawa, a webinar (web seminar) in mid-October based upon their article on climate change education to be published in the fall number of Green Teacher. Dates and details of all these events to be announced.